Leading Light

Leading Light
John Smith
United Kingdom
11
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Leading Light
Synopsis

Leading Light uses the camera-eye to reveal the irregular beauty of a familiar space. When we inhabit a room, we are only unevenly aware of the space held in it and the possible forms of vision which reside there. The camera-eye documents and returns our apprehension. Vertov imagined a ‘single room’ made up of a montage of many different rooms. Smith reverses this aspect of ‘creative geography’ by showing how many rooms the camera can create from just one.

Director biography

John Smith
John Smith

John Smith was born in Walthamstow, London in 1952. He studied at North-East London Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, after which he became an active member of the London Filmmakers’ Co-op. Inspired in his formative years by conceptual art and structural film, but also fascinated by the immersive power of narrative and the spoken word, he has developed a diverse body of work that subverts the perceived boundaries between documentary, fiction, representation and abstraction. Often rooted in everyday life, his meticulously crafted films playfully explore and expose the language of cinema.

Since 1972, Smith has made over sixty film, video and installation works that have been shown in independent cinemas, art galleries, museums and on television around the world. His films have been awarded major prizes at international film festivals in Oberhausen, Leipzig, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Graz, Geneva, Uppsala, Pamplona, Bordeaux, Lucca, Palermo, Split, Cork, Seoul, Ann Arbor and Chicago. He received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists in 2011, and in 2013 he was the winner of Film London’s Jarman Award. His work is held in the collections of Tate Gallery (UK); Arts Council England; Museum of Modern Art (USA); Muzeum Sztuki, (Poland); Le Plateau (France); Kunstmuseum Magdeburg (Germany) and many other public collections.

John Smith currently lives and works in London.

Finished

Sessions

May

Thursday 04
12:00 h
ECAM

Credits

Language
English - Subtitles in spanish
Director
John Smith