Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival

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Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival
Alchemy FilmFestivalLogo CMYK.jpg
LocationHawick, Scotland
Established2010
Founded byRichard Ashrowan
Directed byRachael Disbury, Michael Pattison
Festival date29 April - 3 May 2021
Websitehttps://alchemyfilmandarts.org.uk

Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival is an annual film festival and the flagship event of Alchemy Film & Arts that takes place each year in the Scottish Borders town of Hawick. Founded in 2010, it has grown to be considered as one of the key fixtures of experimental and artist film within the UK and Europe.[1]

Alchemy Film & Arts, a registered Scottish Charity, receives regular funding from Creative Scotland. The organisation platforms emerging and established artists and "is invested in film as a means of generating discussion, strengthening community, and stimulating creative thought."[2] Alchemy Film & Arts and its annual film festival have been co-directed by Rachael Disbury and Michael Pattison since 2019.[3]

In addition to its annual film festival, Alchemy Film & Arts produces year-round projects that encompass artist residencies, commissions and film exhibitions, a regular screenings programme, research and discussion events. Alchemy partners with LUX Scotland each year to select candidates for Cove Park’s Experimental Film and Moving Image residencies programme.

History[]

2010-2019[]

Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival was founded in 2010 by Scottish Borders based artist Richard Ashrowan. Ashrowan was the Creative Director of the festival and of Alchemy Film & Arts from 2010 to 2018. Situating the festival in the rural Scottish Borders town of Hawick, he described its foundation as "a provocation to prevailing urban-centrism in terms of culture", an attempt to create "a quality of friendliness and intimacy, an environment in which filmmakers, audiences and volunteers all mix, generating a real outpouring of creativity and conversation".[4] The main cinema screenings were held in an award-winning converted spinning mill, Tower Mill, which was part of Heart of Hawick, a partner organisation for the festival. The festival utilised a variety of disused and ex-industrial spaces for moving image installations through the town. During this period the festival became internationally notable, showing around 130 films each year, a mixed programme of short films, feature films, moving image installations, specialist curated programmes and live expanded cinema performances.[5][6]

Alchemy Film & Arts further developed projects for experimental film and artists’ moving image production in Scotland, including artists’ filmmaking residencies in Scotland and Morocco, high street exhibitions programmes, filmmaking symposia, touring programmes and community film projects. The Scottish Borders Moving Image Makers Collective was founded out of a workshop series in 2014. In 2017, Ashrowan curated Scotland’s national exhibition at the Venice Biennale for Alchemy Film & Arts, presenting a film commission by the artist filmmaker Rachel Maclean.[7][8][9] The first eight editions of Alchemy featured premiere screenings by influential artists and experimental filmmakers, including Jan Švankmajer, Sarah Pucill, Andrew Kötting, Rachel Maclean, The Quay Brothers, Semiconductor (artists), Mike Hoolboom, Nina Danino, Patrick Bokanowski, Jacques Perconte, Mark Leckey and Ben Rivers.

Editions[]

2020[]

The tenth edition of Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival took place 1-3 May 2020. Due to the Scottish lockdown imposed as result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this was its first exclusively digital iteration. 'Alchemy Live' happened over three days with a series of free online screenings and events that included 72 films over 15 programmes. The programme included features Phantom Ride by Stephen Broomer and Corporate Accountability by Jonathan Perel.

2021[]

The eleventh edition of Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival took place online 29 April - 3 May 2021.[10] It was free to attend and available, streaming 171 films across both live and on-demand programmes as well as an exhibition.

The eleventh edition featured keynote lectures from Marxist intellectual Vijay Prashad, a live performance on the Scottish Black Atlantic by Natasha Ruwona, an artist talk and screening from Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa about her 2018 film Promised Lands and two guest-curated shorts programmes - one by Greg de Cuir Jr on the intersection of race and ecology and another by New Programmers, a group of young people from the Scottish Borders mentored by Alchemy, on care, healing and mutualism.

The eleventh edition also featured seven on-demand programmes, dedicated to individual artists including Baff Akoto, Dagie Brundert, Richard Fung, Emily Jacir, Jason Moyes, belit sağ, and to artists from the Scottish Borders and South of Scotland. In addition, six newly commissioned artworks encompassing image, text and sound, were presented by artists Ania Bas, Jamie Crewe, Harry Josephine Giles, Jade Montserrat, Cinzia Mutigli and Kaiya Waerea.

Other Projects[]

The Teviot, the Flag and the Rich, Rich Soil[]

As part of its year-round programme, Alchemy launched The Teviot, the Flag and the Rich, Rich Soil in July 2021.[11] Described as a "programme of artist residencies, film commissions, discussion events and community engagement exploring the borders, boundaries and lines of Hawick and the Scottish Borders", the project is part of Creative Scotland's Culture Collective Fund.[12][13]

Taking place between July 2021 and December 2022, the project "engages artists in working with communities to consider the pasts, presents and futures of Hawick while researching and investigating the town and wider region’s cultural identities in relation to land, water, industry, territory, place and environment".

Residency artists include Mark Lyken, Jade Montserrat and Julia Parks. Commissions include work by Jessie Growden, Andy Mackinnon, Leah Millar and Natasha Ruwona. The programme also offers an artist bursary and traineeships scheme.

Film Town[]

In summer 2019, Alchemy launched Film Town, an award-winning community filmmaking initiative that aims to work with local partners to widen access and cultural inclusion for Hawick and its communities.[14][15] Community groups with whom Alchemy have partnered to make films include Branching Out (Borders Additional Needs Group), After a Suicide Working Group (NHS Borders), Scottish Borders Rape Crisis Centre, Borders Women's Aid, Scouts Scotland, Hawick Congregational Community Church, Hadrian Creatives, Borders College, and Interest Link, a volunteer befriending service working with young people with learning disabilities and vulnerable adults across the Scottish Borders.

Outwith[]

In April 2021, Alchemy launched Outwith, a filmmaking academy and creative network programme for 16-25-year-olds in the Scottish Borders.[16] Partnering groups include Branching Out (Borders Additional Needs Group), Hadrian Creatives, Borders Youth Theatre and LGBT Youth Borders.

Continue Watching[]

From October 2020 to April 2021, Alchemy delivered Continue Watching, an online season of film screenings, discussion events and critical writing, featuring work by Yashaswini Raghunandan, Noorafshan Mirza and Brad Butler, Joshua Bonnetta, Clemens Wilhelm and Jan Martinec, and two guest-curated programmes - by Marcus Jack, of artists' moving image in Scotland from 1970 to 2020, and Jonathan Ali, of experimental horror films from the Caribbean. Commissioned texts for the season were written by Jemma Desai, Sonya Dyer and Alix Rothnie. A discussion event, Archive, Verb, exploring the ways in which experimental film can be considered archival, featured artists Ashanti Harris, Onyeka Igwe, Sophie Lindsey and Ed Webb-Ingall.

References[]

  1. ^ Cloughton, Rachael (2016). "Alchemy Film Festival" (PDF). Scottish Art News. Scotland: Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  2. ^ "About Alchemy Film & Arts". Alchemy Film & Arts. Retrieved 9 February 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ "Appointments, Expansions, Growth". Alchemy Film & Arts. Retrieved 9 February 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ "Filmmakers and artists head to Hawick for Alchemy Film Festival". Creative Scotland. 20 February 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  5. ^ Robertson, Murray (11 April 2018). "Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2018". The List. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  6. ^ Harkness, Alistair (4 March 2017). "Film review: Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival". The Scotsman. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  7. ^ Mansfield, Susan (9 May 2017). "Interview: Rachel Maclean on representing Scotland at the Venice Biennale". The Scotsman. Retrieved 9 May 2017.
  8. ^ Cook, William (9 May 2017). "Rachel Maclean: A grotesque Disney for the Facebook generation". BBC. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  9. ^ Mansfield, Susan (21 March 2018). "Art reviews: Rachel Maclean". The Scotsman. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  10. ^ Pattison, Michael. "ALCHEMY 11 | LOBBY". Alchemy Film & Arts. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  11. ^ "THE TEVIOT, THE FLAG AND THE RICH, RICH SOIL". Alchemy Film & Arts. Retrieved 19 July 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "Culture Collective Fund". www.creativescotland.com. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  13. ^ "Announcement of Culture Collective recipients".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ^ "Hawick's Alchemy Film & Arts appoints new director and wins £88k grant". The Southern Reporter. 11 March 2019. Retrieved 9 February 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ^ "Film Town". Alchemy Film & Arts. Retrieved 9 February 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  16. ^ "Outwith".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links[]

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