Cinema Mythica is a winner!

Fabula member Richard Clarke's latest film is selected for multiple film festivals and wins an award!

  Actor Mark Daniels as the despicable villain Mr Murnau, here he espies his nemesis the heroine Arianne.

Richard Clarke's latest film, Cinema Mythica, is a 16 minute film that tells the story of a female orphan's heroic voyage towards self discovery and dénouement (completion or fulfilment of life task). It is set amidst a transition landscape of period design in historic locations with fictional characters. 

Richard is a multi-award winning, international independent filmmaker with a master’s degree in Art and Design from The University of Brighton. His preferred filmmaking genre is short narrative fiction with a fantasy theme and his work has been described as dark, theatrical, imaginative, comical and thought provoking.  So far he has made twenty-two short films. 

As well as being the director, the lighting manager, cinematographer, editor and tea maker! - Richard also makes all his own props and sets and these are beautiful art objects in their own right.

Taking a break, the actor surprises the cast and crew during filming by turning the camera on them.  

We are pleased to tell you that Cinema Mythica has been officially selected and has won ‘Best Music Award’ in the following festival:

MAC Underground Film Festival in Manaus, Amazonia, Brazil in the famous 'Amazon Theatre’. It premieres in October 2016 and has been translated into Portuguese for this festival. ‘Best Music Award’

Further official Film Festival selections include:

- 10th River Film Festival in Padova, Italy premiered in June 2016 and it was translated into Italian for this festival.

- Minikino Film Festival in Denpasar in Bali, premieres in October 2016 and has been shortlisted as finalist.

- Indiewise Virtual Film Festival in Miami Florida, premieres in July 2017.

The film has also been submitted to the ‘Del Fic Autor Film Festival’ in Mexico and Jerzain Ortega, Director of the festival has said of it:

“The performances are very good also the direction and sound…overall a very cool short film from a talented director, it’s highly creative and imaginative”. 

The film stars the prestigious talents of Ruby Hermon, Mark Daniels, Juliette Rajak, Madeleine Swift, Dagmara Rudkin and many more. 

Behind the golden screen of the kiosk set; lights and camera are ready...here comes... ‘action’.

 Richard guides the Cinema Mythica ladies through a song rehearsal, they captured it perfectly.

The wonderful singing Theatre Patrons perform, an eventually unused, film song 'Wagons Roll’.

The film took two years to make and it is inspired by the long history of filming and picture houses in the City of Brighton and Hove dating back to the late 1900’s. This includes the world famous Art Deco design of the Regent Cinema, opened in 1927 a building that once occupied the site of what is now Boots the Chemist in North Street.  

The theatre set on location -  designed and built for the hallway of a period Georgian house.

The interior of the Duke of York's picture palace was another inspiration for Richard’s set designs that were made on location in a period Georgian house with a theatrical ownership history in Brighton's Hanover Crescent. The picture house is another well known Brighton cinema landmark and, built in 1910, it is arguably the world’s longest running cinema.

Techniques of theatre and early cinema are embedded in the film, especially split screen techniques such as those developed by Hove filmmaking pioneer George Albert Smith in his 1899 film Santa Claus. Part of Richard’s research during the making of Cinema Mythica took him to Hove Museum which has a dedicated Early Cinema section on the history of film in Brighton and Hove, including details of Smith’s filmmaking exploits. 

It is well worth a visit to Hove Museum to learn more about the history and culture of filmmaking in the city. If you visit between December 3rd and April 2017 you will have a chance to watch Cinema Mythica. It will be screened daily on the Fabula film reel in the cinema on the first floor at the museum for the duration of our forthcoming exhibition. This will also be an opportunity to see many of Richard's beautifully crafted props that will be on show downstairs in the gallery.

 Reproducing early cinema split Screen Film techniques using modern digital editing.

Film Still from the beginning of Cinema Mythica, these film techniques show authentic early cinema screen size, inter-titles and screen quality.

Last but not least, please follow links from the Fabula website for more information about Cinema Mythica and Richard's work.

'The Camp' at a London Film Festival and Hove Museum - don't miss it!

We are pleased to tell you that Madeleine Swift's film 'The Camp' has been chosen as part of the official selection for the the Factual Animated Film Fuss Festival - a film festival that celebrates animated documentary's. 

Madeleine's film is a very touching story about childhood, nostalgia, family love and keeping important memories alive. The story, written and narrated in text by Madeleine, is really brought to life through the way that she has used archival materials and music from the time to create her illustrations and animations. This film is really special because it has the capacity to connect with people emotionally and when it was played at her MA show there was not a dry eye in the house! 

Album covers from the eighties animated to music of the day to bring memories alive.

An illustration of the actual cassette player that Madeleine owned as a child.

We particularly like her animated drawings that, with music and narration, illustrate teenage love on a holiday camp so well. 

Stills from the animation - teenage memories at the disco.

Part of this artist's skill is her way with words and for this reason she is the best person to explain how she came to make this remarkable film: 

'When I was eight years old, and after a difficult year, my grandad bought a small holiday camp set above a beautiful cove in Devon. My parents went onto run the camp for 30 years and I adored it there. This special place became important to me in more ways than one: the camp being a holiday destination combined with it's magical setting made it the most exciting place a child could be, but more than that it contained people who gave the place its heart and soul. 

A still from The Camp

After the camp went into decline it finally closed it's gates for the last time in 2007. From that moment on I had a fear of losing the memories and an overwhelming need to record my feelings of the camp and was led to the MA in Sequential Design/Illustration at the University of Brighton where I did just that. 'The Camp' animation formed part of my final project, completed in 2015, and tells my story through animation, photography, illustration and original cine-film footage'. Madeleine Swift.

The festival is on in East London from 30th September-2nd October. 'The Camp' will be screened on Saturday 1st October as part of 'Onion Skins: Personal Stories' click here to purchase your ticket. 
If you are based in Brighton and Hove and unable to make the film festival you will have another chance to see this film at our forthcoming exhibition at Hove Museum from December 3rd 2016 - March 2017.

Fabula Collective  member Madeleine Swift is a writer and illustrator based in Brighton. She creates books and films around personal stories using writing, archive material, illustration and animation in order to communicate the emotion underneath. 

A still showing a mix of cine film and illustrations

Text and reproductions of actual signs from the holiday camp are used powerfully in the film.

A little girls memories of a holiday camp