The second in a series of films about islands, shot with a clockwork bolex and filmed on the Aeolian Island of Stomboli during the winter months when the place became deserted of tourists.
'Chris Newby makes astoundingly beautiful short films in which sequences of seemingly disparate images, exquisitely photographed are carefully ordered through rigorous editing. Surprising relationships are revealed between different subjects, both in juxtaposition, and through rhythm and resonance as the films progress.
Set in particular coastal and island landscapes, where sea, rocks, pools and sea-life evoke a sense of wonder and yearning, the films are studies of place that serve to underscore the poignancy of the glimpses and remnants of humanity also seen.
The ancestral and seafaring dead are here, represented by the weathered portraits and carved names on their tombstones.There are living figures too: characters who are engaged, perhaps lost in obsessive, failed struggles to make sense of the world.'
Introduction to a retrospective screening at Tate Britain.
A. L Rees Senior Research Fellow at the Royal College of Art.
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