"There are few artist film-makers currently working whose body of work is as quietly ambitious, committed and beautifully realised as that of Jessica Sarah Rinland. Her multi-award winning 16mm short films have established a singular style, informed by extensive research, precise but lyrically associative editing and a refreshing sense of gender, giving emphasis to subtly sensitive portraits of friendship, mutual obsession, female intellectual enquiry and profound empathy with the natural world. She has proved particularly adept at productively complicating the interior lives of driven individuals in her films, balancing fiction with documentary, and narrative with a medium-reflexive inquiry.

The major priority of her artistic activity in various media over recent years has been the whale – its life-cycle and the challenges to its ecology, as well as the historical, environmental and cultural contexts in which it is viewed. Hers is important and timely work, made of attention, prescience and grace." – Gareth Evans

We’re pleased to welcome Jessica Sarah Rinland to present a programme of her recent films, followed by a Q&A with Gareth Evans.

The Blind Labourer
2016 | 26 min | Colour | Digital

The Blind Labourer examines the similarities and contrasts within the whaling and lumber industry. It edits together archive footage of labourers in the forests, at sea and in factories, felling trees, cutting whales and developing their multiple products for society and scientific studies. The film rejects the idea that beings can be ranked according to their relative value, and explores each micro and macro forms' effect on one other.

Y Berá, Bright Waters
Jessica Sarah Rinland
2016 | 10 min | Colour | Digital

Accounts ranging from varying moments in human history, describe the organisms that inhabit the second largest wetland in the world.

Commissioned by Arts Council England and London Short Film Festival Y Berá, Bright Waters responds to the educational films of Mary Field from 1920 to 1950. It is filmed in the second biggest wetland in the world, Iberá, with an incredible biodiversity of fauna and flora. Voiceover and text are taken from historical and current facts, and fictional accounts of the Argentine landscape, to comment on how the dissemination of knowledge in film has changed throughout history.

Expression of the Sightless
Jessica Sarah Rinland
2015 | 7 min | B/W | Digital

Inquisitive hands explore what the eye is unable to see. Filmed at Tate Britain.

Necropsy of a Harbour Porpoise (Seeing From our Eyes into Theirs)
Jessica Sarah Rinland
2015 | 11 min | Colour | Digital

A response to Stan Brakhage’s The Act Of Seeing With Ones Own Eyes which creates a blunt statement on the human condition by depicting human autopsies. Necropsy of a Harbour Porpoise (Seeing From Our Eyes Into Theirs) examines the ever-enigmatic whale by revealing its interior, taking away its mystery and disparity, highlighting similarities between seemingly contrasting, expired organisms.

Not as Old as the Trees
Jessica Sarah Rinland
2014 | 3 min | Colour | Digital

80-year-old Saul has lived in London all his life. For the past 20 years he has spent his spare time climbing trees in Hampstead Heath.

Darse  Cuenta
Jessica Sarah Rinland
2009 | 3 min | Colour | Digital

An unidentifiable image appears and disappears. A voiceover accounts the invisibility of a hole in the middle of a road (Poem by Jorge Bucay).

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More info: www.jessicarinland.com