Close Up

4 November 2016: Fireflies Issue #4: Pedro Costa / Ben Rivers Launch + What Means Something & Sack Barrow

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We’re delighted host the launch of film publication Fireflies Issue #4. Following explorations of the cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Pier Paolo Pasolini, Béla Tarr and Abbas Kiarostami, Claire Denis and Jia Zhangke Fireflies Issue #4 focuses on Pedro Costa and Ben Rivers, across 160 pages of essays, poetry, fiction, visual art and interviews in a beautifully designed print artefact.

Issue #4 features original contributions from: Annabel Brady-Brown, Jordan Cronk, Leo Goldsmith & Michael Sicinski, Alena Lodkina, Max Nelson, José Neves, Adam Rivett, Zander Sherman & John Zerzan, Tara Judah, Adrian Martin, Susana Moreira Marques, Alice Robinson, Madeleine Watts, Moira Weigel, Rebecca Foust, Gareth Evans, Lucas de Lima, John Crowley, Nick Modrzewski, Ellen van Neerven, Samuel Rutter, A.L. Snijders (trs. Lydia Davis), and Giovanni Marchini Camia.

Ben Rivers will introduce two of his short films following the magazine launch

Sack Barrow
Ben Rivers
2011 | 21 min | Colour | 16mm  

"Sack Barrow explores a small family run factory in the outskirts of London. It was set up in 1931 to provide work for limbless and disabled ex-servicemen until the factory finally went into liquidation this year. The film observes the environment and daily routines of the final month of the six workers. Years of miniature chemical and mineral processes transform the space into another world. Towards the end an extract of The Green Child by Herbert Read describes the descent into a watery cave world." – Ben Rivers

What Means Something
Ben Rivers
2015 | 66 min | Colour | DCP  

"A portrait of the painter Rose Wylie. I met Rose a few years ago and we got along well. I went to visit her studio and she watched some of my films. Happily she liked them. So I asked her if I could make a film about her and she agreed. The film, finally, is a meeting between two friends.  

Much like when Rose begins a painting, making a filmic portrait is an open engagement; the exact form will reveal itself in the making. I began by visiting Rose repeatedly at her house in Kent, filming her in her studio, house and garden. The film grew from modest beginnings and became much longer than intended, mainly because I wanted to keep returning to see Rose. She gave me complete access to filming her painting – so there are long sequences simply watching this process, alongside more relaxed times reading, looking at sketchbooks, talking about painting and other things, looking at source material and sitting in her jungle-like garden." – Ben Rivers  

Ben Rivers-inspired artwork by Marijn Degenaar and James Geoffrey Nunn

More info:
www.benrivers.com
www.fireflieszine.com