I have been curating and producing a film for Vision and Media’s Digital Film Archive Fund since November 2010. The film is a creative documentary working with contemporary artists to produce new artwork using stimulus from archive footage and stories from the South Asian Community in Cheetham Hill.
The project has been painstakingly gruelling but it’s nearly the end and I’m kind of happy about the product, finally (as happy as anyone can be after producing a film). As a filmmaker it was a really weird project to work on. There is so much more to curating than I initially envisaged and my role on the project grew as the idea for the project developed?
I had to try and find footage, manage budgets, liaise with artists, write contracts, amend contracts etc. most of which was totally new to me but it has been an amazing experience. At times I gave up hope of finding some inspiring archive footage that could be used for the film. Because it was working with the South Asian Community in a specific area it was difficult to find archive footage.
I found some footage at traditional archives but there wasn’t a lot that was really personal and authentic which was really needed for the film. Luckily I managed to find some fantastic footage that was donated by a very generous and trusting member of the community.
The process of making the film was very strange. Working with artists it was trying to find a way of providing them with enough stimulus to produce the artwork. Initially they only had the archive footage and the stories from the South Asian community in Cheetham Hill but if they went away and produced something separately, they might come back with something that didn’t fit well. They had to work very closely together to make sure that their perceptions and ideas matched and gelled well. It was a difficult process but I think that the end product is very strong.
The film features an original score by Jason Singh, the film has been created within the community in collaboration with video artists Mauro Camal and Richard Ramchurn from AlbinoMosquito and poets Sarah Saeed, Saquib Chowdhury and Sarah Gbeyeyi.
The screening of the film is the 28th of April, 7pm @Cornerhouse
