The Afterlight (2021 film)

The Afterlight is a 2021 British experimental supercut art film directed and assembled by Charlie Shackleton.[1][2]

The Afterlight
Directed byCharlie Shackleton
Produced byCatherine Bray
Anthony Ing
Charlie Shackleton
CinematographyRobbie Ryan
Edited byCharlie Shackleton
Music byJeremy Warmsley
Production
company
Loop
Release date
Running time
82 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
Shackleton in 2022, during a screening of The Afterlight

Summary edit

The film, produced by Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing and Shackleton, and distributed by their studio Loop,[3] consists of scenes of actors from old films who are no longer alive.[4] The only copy of the Afterlight exists on a single 35mm film print,[5] so that every time the film is played it gradually erodes until eventually it will diminish entirely and become a lost film.[6] Featuring cinematography from Robbie Ryan and composed of films from the 1960s or before,[7][8][4] the film is entirely in black and white.[9]

Films featured on The Afterlight edit

Reception edit

Jonathan Romney, writing for the British Film Institute, gave a positive review of the Afterlight, stating that "placed together, the images evoke a post-death existence, perfect, poetic and yet irreducibly desolate," and favourably compared the film to the 2010 supercut art installation The Clock.[11] Adrian Hui of the Michigan Daily gave a more mixed review, praising its concept and "seamless [editing] between shots from different films as if they were the same film and pieces of dialogue from different films," but stated that as an experimental film, the Afterlight was "not experimental enough," arguing that the film was "not quite bold enough in pushing the boundaries" of its source material.[12]

Release edit

The Afterlight had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on 15 October 2021.[4] As of December 2022, the film has been screened publicly 44 times according to its official website:

Screenings edit

  1. 15 October 2021: BFI London Film Festival, London, England
  2. 17 October 2021: BFI London Film Festival, London, England
  3. 6 November 2021: The Brighton Film Festival, Brighton, England
  4. 10 November 2021: Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds, England
  5. 25 November 2021: Cambridge Film Festival, Cambridge, England
  6. 4 March 2022: Campus Theatre, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, United States
  7. 25 March 2022: Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
  8. 31 March 2022: Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
  9. 4 May 2022: Prismatic Ground, Queens, New York City, United States
  10. 11 May 2022: Chicago Film Society, Chicago, Illinois, United States
  11. 14 May 2022: Ragtag Cinema, Columbia, Missouri, United States
  12. 16 May 2022: MDFF Selects, Toronto, Canada
  13. 19 May 2022: Visuals, Montréal, Canada
  14. 22 May 2022: Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, United States
  15. 24 May 2022: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, United States
  16. 26 May 2022: Bellwether Series, Amherst, Massachusetts, United States
  17. 31 May 2022: George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York, United States
  18. 29 June 2022: BFI London Film Festival, London, England
  19. 30 June 2022: King Street Cinema, Ipswich, England
  20. 2 July 2022: Docs Ireland, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  21. 3 July 2022: Irish Film Institute, Dublin, Ireland
  22. 6 July 2022: The Electric, Birmingham, England
  23. 10 July 2022: Broadway Cinema, Nottingham, England
  24. 14 July 2022: HOME, Manchester, England
  25. 17 July 2022: Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales
  26. 22 July 2022: Watershed, Bristol, England
  27. 24 July 2022: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
  28. 27 July 2022: Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, Scotland
  29. 29 July 2022: Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland
  30. 31 July 2022: Genesis Cinema, London, England
  31. 2 August 2022: Roxie Theater, San Francisco, California, United States
  32. 7 August 2022: Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia
  33. 9 August 2022: Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia
  34. 18 August 2022: QAGOMA, Brisbane, Australia
  35. 20 August 2022: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
  36. 23 August 2022: Aero Theatre, Los Angeles, California, United States
  37. 17 September 2022: Camden International Film Festival, Camden, Maine, United States
  38. 7 October 2022: Refocus Film Festival, Iowa City, Iowa, United States
  39. 8 October 2022: Refocus Film Festival, Iowa City, Iowa, United States
  40. 15 October 2022: Widescreen Weekend, Bradford, England
  41. 21 October 2022: Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, New York, United States
  42. 24 October 2022: Yale Film Archive, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
  43. 1 November 2022: The Grand Illusion, Seattle, Washington, United States
  44. 25 November 2022: Austrian Film Museum, Vienna, Austria

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Film Screening: The Afterlight". Yale Library. Yale University. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  2. ^ Ghosts in the Machine: Charlie Shackleton's Afterlight Project — The Flickering Knight
  3. ^ Official trailer on Vimeo
  4. ^ a b c Dalton, Ben (11 May 2022). "Single print feature 'The Afterlight' sets self-distributed UK-Ireland cinema tour (exclusive)". Screen Daily. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  5. ^ Wexner Center for the Arts
  6. ^ Shackleton, Charlie (7 October 2021). "I made a film that's designed to be lost – and that's not so different from Netflix". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  7. ^ American Cinematheque
  8. ^ Living Ghosts at the Melbourne International Film Festival – Senses of Cinema
  9. ^ "The Afterlight". British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  10. ^ a b c The Life and Death of 'The Afterlight' - Film Cred
  11. ^ Romney, Jonathan (1 July 2022). "The Afterlight: a film of immortals en route to oblivion". British Film Institute. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  12. ^ Hui, Adrians (28 March 2022). "Ann Arbor Film Festival 2022: 'The Afterlight' is an alluring tribute to a bygone era of cinema". The Michigan Daily. Retrieved 24 December 2022.

External links edit