William Raban

Experimental documentary following the flow of the Thames out of London to the sea.

Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.

"The film alternates from recording in time-lapse (one frame every ten seconds) to running through the camera at 24 f.p.s. (regular speed). The film was made in a continuous heavy rainstorm, and the front element of the Angenieux lens accumulated drops of rain on its surface until the view became obscured. The bursts of film at normal speed occur just after the lens had been wiped dry to reveal the trees, marsh grass, and watersedge in clear sharp focus beyond" William Raban

A rapid time-lapse journey from the London Houses of Parliament to the English Channel near the port of Dover is offset by David Cunningham’s musical score composed from fragments of Margaret Thatcher’s Belgrano speech.

A land and sea-scape film drawn from rich sources of imagery: the constantly changing mood of the sea to the distinctly different shorelines of Kent and the Pas de Calais – twenty-one miles of water that define both the “island race” and English hostility towards a wider integration within Europe.

Part One: Variation in Density a)The picture on each of the five screens is identical, seven second fades from black, through clear, to black again. The same fade is printed onto the optical sound track to synchronise with the picture. b)Then follow fades from light to dark. c)And from dark to light. Part Two: Intermittency Relative patterns of occlusion and exposure occupy 2 screens. Each exposure fires a stroboscopic flash of colour: yellow for one screen; blue for the other, filling the centre of both screens with colour, haloed with after-image complementaries. W.R.

"This experiment determines what happens when a negative is superimposed upon its own positive image. The center of the picture forms the optical soundtrack on both left and right screens so that what you see finds its aural equivalent in sound." - Anthology Film Archives

Following the eruption of the Lakakigar volcano, Iceland in 1783, a sulphurous haze shrouded vaste swathes of the northern hemisphere, causing widespread crop failures, consequent famine and disease across Europe, parts of America, North Africa, and India. It is estimated to have killed millions of people. Using first-hand accounts from Iceland and from across Europe, Raban’s film connects this event with the current global political and ecological crisis. It continues recent film investigations into the use of the long single take and revisits Raban’s preoccupations with landscape film from the early 1970s.