Emma shares this latest news from Mountbatten. Ed
Hakawati is thrilled to announce the UK release of ISLAND, Directed by artist-filmmaker Steven Eastwood (Buried Land) and produced by BAFTA nominated Elhum Shakerifar (A Syrian Love Story, Even When I Fall) launching 14 September 2018 in UK cinemas nationwide, following a successful World Premiere at the 61st BFI London Film Festival and an international premiere at Rotterdam International Film Festival.
Filmed over 12 months at the Mountbatten hospice on the Isle of Wight, ISLAND is a life-affirming reflection on the phenomena of dying, portraying the transition away from personhood and observing the last days and hours of life and the moment of death.
Preview screenings with Q&A
Special preview screenings with Director Q&As ahead of the UK release on the Isle of Wight include:
- Saturday 8 September – Ventnor Arts Club at 5pm & 8pm + Q&A
- Sunday 9 September – Quay Arts at 6.30pm + Q&A
ISLAND: The Film
On the Isle of Wight, four individuals experience the year in which their lives will end. Illness progresses, relationships gently shift, and we are witness to rarely seen and intensely private moments. One person shares their acceptance of death, whilst another is surrounded by a community in shock.
We observe bedside care and the rhythm of breathing. In a pathology lab, microscopic biopsies in close-up show the interior of bodies, our biology. Like the ferries cyclically arriving and departing in this an enigmatic landscape, the film appears buoyant, afloat. Death is shown to be natural and everyday but also unspeakable and strange.
Portrayals of death in art and film are generally oblique affairs, using metaphor or fiction to avoid presenting a dying person too directly. ISLAND eloquently asks us to consider consider the process of dying in a new light.
Why is death a taboo?
Steven Eastwood, Director says:
“I wanted to be witness to the moment of death, because I felt that this was taboo in our society. I wanted to ask, why is that taboo, given that death happens every day and is as natural an event as birth?”
The sister artwork, The Interval and the Instant (2017) is a multiscreen video installation commissioned by Fabrica Gallery.
Funded by Arts Council England and Big Lottery with the support of FreeFolk Post Production, CODA Post Production, Queen Mary University and Fabrica. A Paradogs Production in association with Hakawati Films.
Find out more by visiting the Website.
Image: © Steven Eastwood
