Ruth Paxton: Nevada / Rockhaven
15:30 Thu 10 Jan 2013
Filmmaker Ruth Paxton presents 2 visual films as a screening installation. Both films explore powerful themes of performance, rescue, guilt and loss, and sit somewhere between experimental documentary and artwork. Audiences will find the pieces engaging, emotive, sensory and beautiful.
NEVADA (2012) is the psychological portrait of two lovers who have grown to fucking hate one another; who are well beyond breaking point and who must separate. Drawing inspiration from aspects of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller’s fated marriage as a springboard for content and style, NEVADA is a contemporary experimental study about a failed relationship, and how exhausting hatred can become.
ROCKHAVEN (2012) is an experimental film, commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society through the London Short Film Festival, made in response to the epic contemporary composition, ‘Prometheus’ written by Brian Ferneyhough. The film is an intimate physical portrait of two male boxers, and explores themes to do with provocation, endurance, saturation and repetition, featuring textural abstract projections. It premiered with a live performance of the orchestral work in Nottingham earlier in 2012.
Ruth Paxton is an impassioned young
Scottish filmmaker and visual artist. Her work is heavily influenced by popular
culture and has been celebrated for its surreal, unique and often humorous
style. In 2007, Ruth graduated with a
Post-Graduate diploma in Film at Screen Academy Scotland having gained her
honours degree at Edinburgh College of Art. She won the Best Short Film at the
2008 London Short Film Festival for her film Paris / Sexy.
ICA
SW1Y 5AH
Access
Please find all access information here, or drop a line to Helen MacKenzie at access@shortfilms.org.uk for more information or special requests.
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NEVADA
Ruth Paxton 25 mins (UK, 2012)
NEVADA is a psychological portrait of two lovers who have grown to hate one another, who are well beyond breaking point and who must separate. Taking inspiration from aspects of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller's fated marriage, as a springboard for content and style, NEVADA is a contemporary experimental study about humans and how exhausting hatred can be, while also examining themes of identity and guilt. NEVADA is an engrossing, expressionistic mood piece with a narrative backbone, powerful themes of loathing, performance, rescue and loss, with strong central characters. -
ROCKHAVEN
Ruth Paxton 20 mins (UK, 2012)
ROCKHAVEN is Paxton's commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society, to make a short film for a live performance of contemporary composition, 'Prometheus' by Ferneyhough. Paxton has written an experimental response to the experimental score, a process which led her to examining the young male warrior in a portrait of two boxers. The film explores themes to do with provocation, endurance, saturation and repetition and features two titanic fighters and abstract projections.