Two Films About Loneliness
- Submitting institution
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University of East London
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 1
- Type
- Q - Digital or visual media
- Publisher
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- Month
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- Year
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
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- Criminology
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- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
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- Reserve for an output with double weighting
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- Additional information
- Two films about loneliness is a collaborative stop-motion animation directed by William Bishop-Stephens and Christopher Eales featuring the voice of the actor and comedian Tim Key.
Using the methodology employed by Lars von Trier’s ‘Five Obstructions’ - a documentary that forces Jorgen Leth to remake his short film ‘A Perfect Human’ with different constraints and parameters - this experimental animation employs a single, split screen, with the characters of Hamster and a man communicating through their shared apartment wall, revealing their overlapping emotional states. The format allows the directors to play with screen space and create a wall that could then be ‘broken’, suggesting the impermanence of culturally determined differences while, at the same time, offering a hopeful resolution to the problem of loneliness in the contemporary world.
Two films about loneliness takes on new significance in the era of Covid-19 in its reference to the necessity of navigating new forms of social life in digital space. At the same time, it offers a post-human analysis of the potential for new social forms to emerge from the interaction between distinct forms of embodiment.
Awards
2014 - Ecumenical Award - Oberhausen International Kurtzfilmtage.
2015 - Winner (Audience Award) - Future Shorts Festival, Spring Programme.
2019 - First Prize Awarded to Two Films about Loneliness, Corti Sul Fino Del Limite’ Festival, Bergamo, Italy.
The film was an official selection for European and American festivals including:
The Sundance Film Festival, 2015.
American Film Institute Film Festival, 2015.
Hamburg Internationale Kurzfilmtage, 2014.
Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2014.
London International Animation Festival, 2014.
London Short Film Festival, 2015.
Warsaw Film Festival, 2014.
Public screening at the InterFilm Berlin, 2017 panel.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
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- English abstract
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