Secrets of the perpetually sick [redacted]

This film is based on Jackie Morrey Grace’s poem ‘Secrets of the perpetually sick’. Jackie wanted to film in a hospital, having spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals due to chronic auto-immune illness. I was drawn to the security camera footage which was showing on a screen in an adjacent room. I filmed this and slowed it down and really liked the dark quality of it, simmering with the rage, despair and alienation Jackie has experienced due to her health challenges. Redacting her much longer poem felt quite brutal, but in a sense that was also fitting, because in the medical system Jackie has often been unheard and outright dismissed.

  • Janet Lees
    Director
  • Jackie Morrey-Grace
    Writer
  • Jackie Morrey-Grace
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Experimental
  • Genres:
    Poetry film, videopoetry, artfilm, film poetry
  • Runtime:
    2 minutes 23 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 10, 2020
  • Country of Origin:
    Isle of Man
  • Country of Filming:
    Isle of Man
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • 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. All of 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 believe that film and photography, alongside poetry, are among the most important and authentic means of creative expression in these unprecedented times.