One and the Other Time

A difficult night out sparks a traumatic memory for a woman whose way out is to ritualistically harm, then fix herself. Intercutting the two states of the protagonist's psyche, rich golden sweeps from the past begin to bleed into the reds and blues of the film's present.

Sarah Turner's film is a ghost story that explores what we forget and how we remember. The stunning imagery comes solely from the window of the Trans-Siberian train, shot first in 1987-8 and then again in 2007-8. The re-enactment of the journey is a memory work, a re-enactment of the past in the present through the process of filming. But the return journey is haunted by the voices of two dead friends that dominate the soundscape of the 'archive' footage.

The film opens directly and freshly with a screen journey which is also a kinetic light sculpture holding its rotation steadily before our eyes. Many associations emerge as we hear the tale in relation to this image and its shifting background. . . including a bicycle being ridden by the filmmaker, spools and spokes, a feeling of a metal insect or iridescent whirring dragonfly picking up the passing colours. There is a still centre to the radial motion against linear road or landscape. A feeling of cyclical storytelling comes with the account of her own life and giving birth to a ‘computer literate and perfectly bilingual’ baby daughter. We are led to respond to her not being guaranteed to stay in control. Again multiple strands are knotted in this fortune wheel: gain on the swings, lose on roundabouts, with no ‘perfection’ in relations with other beings on the round of merry, or social, or just plain recurring intercourse. -Sandra Lahire

Featuring the Carpenters song ‘Close To You’, this is an ode to love and fantasy. Filmed in a gay bar, the roving camera hesitates on a woman’s face, on some lilies, on small groups of people drinking and enjoying themselves and on the proverbial kiss between two women. As if on cue, ten lesbians gather in line at the bar and nonchalantly perform a synchronised dance. A sublime fantasy, with pleasure as protest.

Experimental short film by Sarah Turner.

Can interspecies communication give us enlightenment to mysteries yet unseen? Dolphins have been known to be one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet. What do they know that we don't? In this short film, a dolphin tells Sarah a secret of the universe. Inspired by the research of John C. Lilly.

Short film about a young girl's rude retaliation for paternal humiliation. In voice over a young woman tells a subversive tale which interweaves suburban kitsch with childhood defiance. The film focuses its point of view on a child's gaze which interacts with the recounted story producing a sense of irony and challenging the truthfulness of the interpretation of events.

London Birds... evokes the shifting mental states of a streetwise, 15 year old girl. The film explores the impact of her surprise sexual awakening: a moment of rejection that's bad enough to make her run and keep running.