Curated by Jill Daniels and Sally Waterman, Filming the Personal is a programme that explores the dynamics of paternal relationships. What are the implications of filming autobiographical subjects? This selection of works reveals a range of everyday encounters, humorous tales, suppressed emotions and tender observations. This event is held in association with the Moving Image Research Centre at University of East London.

Directed by Tweedie
Duncan Cowles
2014 | 16'42 min | Colour | Digital

Making a film when you're 87 is less than convenient. As granddad 'Tweedie' reluctantly takes up his new role as a filmmaker, we’re invited to examine the difficulties of communication between the generations. Will Tweedie start to see the world differently when looking at things through the lens of his 23 year old grandson?

Points of Departure
Alia Syed
2014 | 16'32 min | Colour | Digital

The objects and places we cannot leave behind create the tapestry that is Points of Departure. Exploring themes of personal and collective memory through the artist’s relationship to the city of Glasgow, a voice over describes a tablecloth she retrieved whilst clearing her elderly father’s house.

The Deep Sea Swell
Sally Waterman
2009 | 1'32 min | Colour | Digital

The Deep Sea Swell re-interprets T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land to create a haunting reminder of the artist’s estrangement from her father. Her fluctuating emotions are represented through a visual metaphor that seeks to embody the darker undercurrents of suppressed memories that continue to resurface.

The Bag of a Thousand Pockets
Anthea Kennedy
2002 | 8 min | B/W | Digital

"My bag has a thousand pockets. In each one is a memory." These words are spoken by the father of the filmmaker as he recalls brief and fragmented memories of his life in Germany before being forced into exile. These memories connect to a wider German history.

The Third Dad
Theresa Moerman Ib
2015 | 10'40 min | Colour | Digital

Ten years after breaking all ties with her alcoholic father, a daughter sets out not only to find his grave, but also redemption. Poetically merging archive material, new footage and an immersive soundscape, The Third Dad is a brave journey of memory, self-discovery and a desperate attempt at reconciliation.

My Private Life II
Jill Daniels
2015 | 25 min | Colour | Digital

In My Private Life II split screens create a powerful metaphor of the uneasy relationship between father and daughter. Poetic enactments and home movies give evocative glimpses into a family history defined by her father’s unacknowledged sexuality.

Dad’s Stick
John Smith
2012 | 5 min | Colour | Digital

Dad’s Stick features three well-used objects that were shown to the filmmaker by his father a few months before he died. Looking back over half a century, the film creates a dialogue between abstraction and literal meaning to produce an oblique portrait of "a perfectionist with a steady hand".

Programme image courtesy of Theresa Moerman Ib