Experiencing Interruptions?

Nowhere to go but on

This film is based on a cento I made using lines from poems by Christian Wiman, Anne Sexton, Tracy K Smith, Heid E Edrich, and Wendell Berry. It is also inspired by Martyn Cain’s hauntingly beautiful piece of music ‘Taeym’. I created the film just before the second coronavirus lockdown in the autumn of 2020. It reflects not only on the pandemic situation, but also the infinitely more deadly, but still largely overlooked, threat to life as we know it: climate breakdown. In the face of the end times, where can we go but on?

  • Janet Lees
    Director
  • Janet Lees
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Experimental
  • Genres:
    Poetry film, videopoetry, film poetry, art film
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 33 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 29, 2020
  • Country of Origin:
    Isle of Man
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Janet Lees

Janet Lees is an artist, poet and poetry filmmaker. Her film-based works have been selected for many festivals and screenings, including the Zebra Poetry Film Festival, the International Videopoetry Festival and the Aesthetica Art Prize.

As an artist she has exhibited around the world. In 2018 she was the artist representing the Isle of Man at the Festival Interceltique in France, with an exhibition comprising art photography, film and poetry.

Janet's poetry is widely published and anthologised. Last year she had two books published: 'House of water', a collection of her poems and art photographs, and 'A bag of sky', the winning collection in the Frosted Fire Firsts prize hosted by the UK's Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

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Director Statement

As an artist, experimental filmmaker and poet, I am expressing and chronicling what it feels like to be human at a time when humanity is having a devastating effect on the ecological systems that sustain life on earth. My work is concerned with creating a mythology for our world; I use the camera as a storytelling machine rather than a documenting device. I think film and photography, alongside poetry, are among the most important and authentic means of creative expression in our times.