Excerpts from the Diary

Repertory consists of one continuous tracking shot, during which the camera completely circles the outside of a locked and empty theatre, whilst a voice describes a three week programme of daily ‘imagined presentations’ inside the theatre.

Directed by Ian Breakwell and Ron Geesin.

A critique of the institution of mental health care that questions ‘normal’ viewing habits.

A white linen sheet appears and disappears within a range of different rural and urban locations.

Directed by Ian Breakwell.

Directed by Ian Breakwell

Directed by Ian Breakwell.

Developed from Ian's published diaries these short works provide an objective, compassionate, often humorous and bizarre view of events that happen around us daily. Commissioned by Channel Four and made in collaboration with independent producer Anna Ridley, this series of short pieces were broadcast over a six week period in April and May 1984.

‘The grisly bloody Christmas reality of the city covered in vomit’ is just one of the seasonal tableaux presented through Ian Breakwell’s ‘Christmas Diary’, eight nightly stories into Channel 4’s Xmas programming.

The Other Side is a double-screen video installation commissioned as part of Breakwell’s residency at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex during the summer and autumn of 2000. The film was shot on the Pavilion’s upper landing, the camera positioned looking out through the curved windows of the stairwell across the exterior balcony to a view of the sea and the horizon. It comprises two alternating sequences projected onto either side of a free standing wall. Footage of elderly couples ballroom dancing on the balcony outside has been slowed down to the rhythm of the accompanying soundtrack, an extract from Franz Schubert’s Nocturne in E-flat Major (Op.148) overlaid by the sounds of breaking waves and seagulls. In the alternating scene, played to the same sound, panoramic vistas of the view out of the building towards the sea and horizon beyond are empty of human presence.

Breakwell's memories of a stranger observed from his window.