LONDON: The Horse Hospital

Tuesday 11th November, 2014

7:30pm

Event information

7.30DOORS (7:45PM START)

£5 ADVANCE £6.50 ON THE DOOR
A BENEFIT EVENT FOR THE HORSE HOSPITAL FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN

A special event, seeking to think differently about the legacy of World War One, with a singular essay film introduced by the film-makers, and two fine poets reading live. The evening will be hosted by Gareth Evans.

STELLA POLARE (2006) 76 MINS; DIR: ANTHEA KENNEDY & IAN WIBLIN
An essay film occupying the ground between narrative, documentary and experimental film-making, Stella Polare is a work of fragmented histories: of the catastrophes of empire, war, terror and resistance of our times. Its unseen narrator ‘encounters’ the inhabitants of an undisclosed port city in old Europe as they stroll along a jetty in the melancholy fading light of evening. These meetings are with terrorists, philosophers, writers, photographers, shopkeepers whose subjective accounts and conjecture create a rupture within twentieth century history and beyond. Such sequences provide a central structure around which threads of image, sound and voiceover are interwoven to create an ambiguous and speculative narrative. Elsewhere, the camera explores a city where the people are largely absent. The dusty faded traces of a glorious imperial past – the interiors of opulently furnished nineteenth century apartments and museum vitrines of stuffed birds – encounter the present tense materiality of the video image. Stella Polare is a work of contemporary relevance which, through its particular engagement with history, reflects on time, memory and violent political action. It was shot in the Italian border city of Trieste.

Plus opening readings of Hugo Ball’s Dadaist anti-war verse by Andy Birtwhistle – “the war is founded on a glaring mistake, men have been confused with machines” – and poet, translator and activist Stephen Watts, who will read his own passionately felt poems, drawing on Italian origins.