Stewart Home

Charting the particular, baffled and morbid character of English attitudes to mortality, The Animal Drums depicts the specific influence of urban space on the psyche. Recalling the tableu film-making of Peter Greenaway and the lyrical disjunction of Harold Pinter, The Animals Drums is one of the first significant British feature-length poetry-films of the 21st century. London disappears under the ground of the film’s ambiguous protagonist, who is half victim, half perpetrator. Gently mad, positively lost, we follow our host through the bounds of a changing, money-washed capital city. Fusing documentary technique, montage and theatrical set pieces, the film features appearances from authors like Iain Sinclair and Stewart Home, alongside actors like Edie Deffebach and Lotje Sodderland, The Animal Drums is unique representation of modern London in old England.

'London Market eXcess' is a term used in the Lloyds insurance industry to describe the practice of re-insuring a policy over and over again, increasing the risk at each turn in the 'spiral' until the whole financial edifice collapses under its own weight. With Thatcher as our narrator, this film takes us on a fast-forward ride through the high-rise 1980s and the lottery-led 1990s. A conceptual pop promo about Britain’s transition from greed, speed and paisley patterns to risk, insecurity and financial meltdown.