For the third year running Eelyn Lee will be delivering the BFI Film Academy at the Barbican. Eelyn has designed a creative approach to guiding 15-19 year old filmmakers through a collaborative process to make micro shorts inspired by seminal British films.
To coincide with the 2016 commemorations marking 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare this year we will be making two short Shakespeare-inspired films.
Watch one of last year's films inspired by Hitchcock's Rear Window here.
An Ealing Trilogy was made through Eelyn Lee's commission by the National Portrait Gallery, London and was made in collaboration with young people from Brentside High School, Ealing.
The film will screen as part of the 'Role Reversal' programme on Wednesday 24th June at 9pm. More details here
This year Eelyn Lee is looking forward to developing her feature-length film, MONSTER. Following last year's successful first stage of development supported by the Barbican and Arts Council England, Eelyn is now seeking support to take the project in to an estuary setting.
In December 2014 Eelyn led a team of collaborating artists, performers and musicians through a 5-day lab in the Barbican's studio theatre, exploring new ways of making moving image work through processes of improvisation.
Three working days later, Eelyn and the 'Monster Team' showcased three edited scenes filmed during the lab. Writer and curator Gareth Evans [Whitechapel Gallery] who presented the event said,
"...The idea that we would see something translated so profoundly from a theatrical space to a cinematic one in just a handful of days is really extraordinary... the process starts ironically in a theatre space and becomes more cinematic as it goes on. A wonderful paradox..."
Taking it's inspiration from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Monster explores notions of demons, fear and otherness, using the setting of the estuary as location.
Eelyn is currently looking to transfer the process, characters and stories to a real setting along the Thames Estuary. Please get in touch if you would like to join the conversation, particularly if you have links with the estuary.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Read Gareth Evans's article about the 5-day lab here.
Left: Gareth Evans during the lab / Right: Filming during the lab
Last week writer, editor, producer, presenter and programmer, Gareth Evans visited the Monster Lab, an experimental 5-day process led by Eelyn Lee to find new ways of making improvised film. Tonight he will be hosting a conversation with Eelyn Lee and her team of collaborators about their experiences, ideas and reflections in the Barbican Cinema 2. Read his own thoughts on their adventures in to devised filmmaking in this poignant and beautifully written guest blog. Here's an extract:
'.... Eelyn Lee and her Pit Lab ensemble are into their fourth day when I drop by, stacking up the hours without weather like their constantly shifting cardboard set, in freighted ventilation, cabled glow, a black walled box for 18, but strangely self-sufficient and like some ‘lord of the flies’ outcrop, seeming to run by its own unspoken rules and rituals, everyone getting on with something, and those who seem least active at a given moment still holding microphones on high stems, waiting for voices but maybe conjuring them too, sonic priestesses, aural conductors of the subterranean air....
...It’s about strangers in town (think Clint, Kitano, Kasper Hauser; think Dogville and the dunes of Kobo Abe). It’s about upheaval in the estuary, about monsters and the triggers they drag in with them, like a net full of old explosives just waiting to go off. It’s about work and love, and conflict and then death; but mostly it’s about the fear that comes from meeting with the ‘other’, from the monsters that we make through instinct and such ignorance; and it takes place in the estuary that took us on its boats to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, that gifted us the toothsome Count, that traffics migrants in, blind with terror in some sealed container. In short, it’s about now, and now again, and then again some more...'
Anamaria Marinca in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Cristian Mungiu
Delighted that Anamaria Marinca will be joining the ensemble cast of Monster, Eelyn Lee's five-day experimental filmmaking lab to be held at the Barbican next week. Anamaria played the lead in 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, which received the prestigious Palme d'Or in Cannes in 2007. She also won a BAFTA for her role in Channel 4's Sex Traffic in 2004.
Other ensemble actors include Kingsley Ben-Adir, Debbie Korley, Nicola Bland and Hi Ching. Find out more about the cast on the project blog.
Monster is a new moving image work by Eelyn Lee. The work will be developed through the Open LAB scheme at Barbican/Guildhall and is supported by Arts Council England.
Pleased to announce that Eelyn Lee's latest moving image work, Monster [16mins] has been selected for this year's BAFTA Qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival.
The festival runs from 5th - 8th Novemver 2015 in the historic city of York, UK.
An Ealing Trilogy is now available to watch online. Following a three month exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery last summer, the film went on to be displayed at Pitzhanger Manor Gallery and was selected for Les Rencontres Internationales, a festival celebrating new cinema and contemporary art in Paris.
The 7-minute film was made by Eelyn Lee in collaboration with students from Brentside High School as part of last year's Creative Connections project at the National Portrait Gallery.
Last night in Barbican Cinema 2 writer, producer and curator Gareth Evans presented some of the edited results of Eelyn Lee's 5-day Monster Lab. Last week Eelyn led a group of 18 collaborating performers, musicians and artists through an experimental process in the Barbican's studio theatre, to find new ways of creating improvised film. Loosely inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the project explored notions of monster, demons and fear, using the setting of the estuary to locate the work.
Evans had visited the Lab on Day 4 and observed the process in action. After seeing the three scenes projected in the cinema, his first comment to the audience was:
"...The idea that we would see something translated so profoundly from a theatrical space to a cinematic one in just a handful of days is really extraordinary... the process starts ironically in a theatre space and becomes more cinematic as it goes on. A wonderful paradox..."
Eelyn Lee and long-term editor/composer Francis Morgan-Giles spent three days editing the footage shot by cinematographer Dominik Rippl. The results are three scenes of a monster story: the river; the hideout and the market. Lee says,
'We have enough footage to cut together four more scenes to complete the story cycle. I am really pleased with the results which are dark, full of suspense and evoke a strong sense of the estuary. We have truly created a new visual language through this unique process. It's very exciting.'
Eelyn is currently looking to transfer the process, characters and stories to a real setting along the Thames Estuary and further develop the work to create a feature length film.
The Monster Team at the End of Day 5. From left to right: Joana Teixidor [animator], Emma Passmore [writer], Eelyn Lee [lead artist/director], Kingsley Ben-Adir [actor], Anamaria Marinca [actor], Nicola Bland [actor], Chris Kelly [art director] Debbie Korley [actor], Amy Addison [design assistant], Francis Morgan-Giles [editor/musical director], Natasha Zielazinski [lead musician], Detta Danford [lead musician], Hi Ching [actor], Sam Mumford [guest musician], Dominique Dunne [Barbican assistant], Sandy Abdelrahman [production assistant], Dominik Rippl [cinematographer]
To kick start a new piece of moving image work, last week Eelyn Lee led a team of eighteen artists, musicians and actors in a five-day lab exploring improvised filmmaking. Eelyn was selected by the Barbcian to develop the work in their studio theatre as part of their Open Lab programme. The lab was also supported by Arts Council England.
"It was an amazing experience. The beginning of the week felt like we were creating improvised theatre and by Thursday the space was functioning as a film set. We have some incredible footage that I can't wait to see cut together" Eelyn Lee, Artist
The results of the lab will be presented by curator Gareth Evans at the Barbcian Cinema 2 this Thursday 11th December at 4.30. To reserve a place e.mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
A day-by-day account of the lab can be read on the project blog.
Wednesday, 29 January 2025 Eelyn has been commissioned to make a new piece of moving image work, to be exhibited at the Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival, 13-29 June, 2025; São Paulo Biennial, Sept, 2025, and the Karachi Biennial, Oct 2026. Building on her research and work made along the Thames Estuary in 2016, Eelyn will continue her exploration of the tidal Thames as a... Read More...
Thursday, 14 November 2024 An illustrated discussion with artist Eelyn Lee and writer-researcher, Dr Yen Ooi about their ongoing collaboration –a call and response creative dialogue between artist and writer. Drawing on migratory energies and ancestral stories, their work creates new orientations, shaped by East and Southeast Asian [ESEA] diasporic experiences. Book FREE... Read More...
Thursday, 15 August 2024 Ancestral Futures 源流之後 is a processional street performance in honour of the first recorded Chinese people in Sheffield –a group of magicians on tour from China who performed at the Whitsuntide Festival, 1855. On 31st May, 1855, the lead magician, Teh Kwei 德貴, buried his 5-week old baby in a Sheffield graveyard.... Read More...
