It Gets Lighter From Here Short Films
Today is the shortest day of 2020 – the darkest year that most of us have ever experienced. With this in mind, the West Midlands arts community have come together today, to share messages of comfort & hope.
Search #ItGetsLighterFromHere & discover hundreds of reasons to smile. Visit https://www.culturecentral.co.uk/IGLFH for a full list of artists and organisations taking part.
Black Country Touring have commissioned 3 new short films, inspired by the phrase “It Get’s Lighter From Here”.
It Gets Lighter From Here
by Adrian Earle
About The Artist
Adrian B. Earle is a Writer, Poet, and Media Maker from Birmingham. Interested in innovative ways to tell stories and shape language in new poetic forms, He has taken commissions for Apples and Snakes, Birmingham City University and Beatfreaks on topics as strange and diverse as the Bicentennial of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, BREACH and a poetry lecture on Ur-Science, Precepts of Neo-Alchemy. Mildly obsessed with the ‘taste’ of a poem, and the things that can be created from the foundation of verse he has been mashing together sonics & Syllables, Images & Iambs for a while now, experimenting & creating digital poems under the name ThinkWriteFly.
Hope is THE Thing with Feathers
by Fox & Rocha
About The Artist
This compelling duo combines the talents of Sam Frankie Fox, a versatile singer, theatre-maker and harpist originally from Wales, with the sound explorations of Portuguese multi-instrumentalist Ricardo Santos Rocha – both based in Sandwell.
“Fox’s humour and passion, and Rocha’s virtuosity, are unmistakable” The Guardian
They have worked closely with Black Country Touring for a number of years and recently collaborated on Graeme Rose’s popular true-crime podcast Fred Jeffs: The Sweetshop Murder, providing a rich film-noir inspired soundtrack with a 1950’s twist. For the It Gets Lighter From Here commission they have created a film in response to Emily Dickinson’s “Hope” is a thing with feathers, offering a sensory imagining of the poem that was filmed in their local, beloved Warley Woods.
Fox & Rocha have a broad portfolio of live performance and recorded work, with projects having been presented at / with Cheltenham Jazz Festival, The British Council Showcase and The Royal Shakespeare Company. Biggest accolades include Fox’s music being played on Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service on BBC Radio 6 Music and Rocha’s collaboration on the soundtrack of short animation film Água Mole (Drop by Drop) being presented at Cannes Film Festival 2017.
They are members of Midlands’ band Kiriki Club and artistic directors of BAM: Babies’ Adventures in Music.
If Trees Could Dance
by Sakab Bashir
About The Artist
Sakab Bashir works at the intersection of art and science, a hybrid of digital and physical artworks exploring the creative use of emerging digital technologies.
Sakab has over 20 years experience as a freelance Graphic Designer working predominantly with arts organisations, charities and individual artists (Black Country Touring, MAC, Symphony Hall, BCLibrary, B’ham Hippodrome, Craftspace, Multistory, WMArts, South Bank Centre, National Trust).