Year of release: 2009
Original format: Super 8mm
Running time: 5 minutes 40 seconds
Screening format: QuickTime, Blu-ray or DVD
Directed, filmed and edited by Stuart Moore
Producer: Kayla Parker
Production: Sundog Media
Supported by a Major Research Award from the University of St Mark and St John
Distribution and sales: Sundog Media sundogmedia@gmail.com
Description
The poetry of Plymouth Sound and city seaside culture captured in glorious Kodachrome Super 8: meet the young tombstoners who gather on the cliffs under Plymouth Hoe at high tide to launch themselves into the waves below.
Winner of the Media Innovation Award 2010: Independent Film. The Media Innovation Awards celebrate the innovative use of media and design: the judges described the film as “a very atmospheric and nostalgic production that was beautifully produced.”
Winner of the 2010 London Short Film Festival Trick of the Light Award “for the most gorgeous looking film.”
Production notes
Shot on the last few remaining rolls of Super 8mm Kodachrome 40 colour reversal film before the processing lab closed, with location sound recordings. The film Sea Front focuses on the area of Plymouth Hoe next to the sea known as the Foreshore, where the once-grand man-made structures built into the limestone cliffs in the nineteenth century are now cracked and crumbling. This space between land and sea is the site of rites of passage for modern-day Plymouth youth, who gather here at high tide throughout the summer months to leap into the water.
Sea Front, directed, filmed and edited by Stuart Moore, and produced by Kayla Parker, is the first film to be released from the Sea City project, ongoing collaborative research with Stuart Moore that explores the perimeter of Plymouth along its boundary with the sea.
Publication and comments
Sea Front features in the British Council’s Britfilm Catalogue 2011 in the Experimental Shorts section.
Philip Ilson (2010) The art of short films Film Features, The Quietus. 8 January 2010.
Exhibition
2019
Watery Adventures in Film, Acorn Theatre, Penzance, Cornwall; part of Jubilee Pool Stories, presented in collaboration with LUX, produced by Barbara Santi and Lou Brett of awen productions CIC and Jane Bailey, in partnership with Jubilee Pool Penzance Ltd (24 June 2019)
2017
Force 8 presents an all-day artists’ film event, The Galley, Bridport, Dorset; featuring Bodies of Water, which also includes Teign Spirit (Saturday 14 January 2017, 11am to 5pm)
2016
Bodies of Water artists’ film programme at Force 8 The Methodist Chapel, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset. Teign Spirit also screened (20 August 2016)
Open Air Cinema short film programme curated by Anna Navas to launch the Sea Swim: Head Above Water touring exhibition at Peninsula Arts Gallery, a History Centre partnership project delivered by Peninsula Arts and Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, in conjunction with Plymouth Arts Centre; looped screening at Tinside Lido, Plymouth (22 to 24 July 2016)
2015
Bodies of Water artists’ film programme presented by CineStar at the Cornwall Film Festival Murdoch House, Redruth. Teign Spirit also screened (14 November 2015)
Bodies of Water artists’ film programme presented by Land/Water and the Visual Arts and Moving Image Arts (MIA) Research; screening followed by a response to the programme and discussion, led by Dr Nicholas Higgs, Postdoctoral Research Fellow to the Director of the Marine Institute; Plymouth University. Teign Spirit also screened (11 February 2015)
2014
Bodies of Water programme of artists’ moving image curated by Kayla Parker for The Power of the Sea exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol. Teign Spirit also screened (3 May 2014)
2012
Marine Screen Marine City Festival, Royal William Yard, Plymouth; evening screening outdoors presented by Plymouth Arts Centre, Dartington Barn, and Peninsula Arts. Showing as the 2011 Deluxe telecine version; other films screened are Cinematic City and Yessling, all showing before Jaws (15 September 2012)
2011
Small Wonder programme, Cine-City, the Brighton Film Festival. A selection of Super 8 films from around the world, curated by Ian Helliwell (19 November 2011)
Cinema City Mobile Cinema, at various locations around Plymouth; in the Sensing Place programme presented by Plymouth Arts Centre (4 to 8 July 2011)
2010
International Program 2 at 7:30 pm Thursday 27 May in Capitol Theatre, Windsor Ontario, at Media City international festival of experimental film and video art held in Windsor Ontario in Canada and Detroit USA (25 to 29 May 2010)
East End Film Festival Adventures in Experiments programme at Rich Mix, Shoreditch: “a selection of work from artists, filmmakers and animators, exploring the limits of new form and creative expression” (programme description) (26 April 2010)
Experiment 4 programme (Guild Cinema 14 April) at the Experiments in Cinema festival in Albuquerque New Mexico: Experiments in Cinema is an annual collaboration between Basement Films, and the Department of Cinematic Arts at the University of New Mexico (14 to 18 April 2010)
2010 London Short Film Festival, Rich Mix, Shoreditch (13 January 2010)
2009
Assemblage exhibition, Peninsula Arts Gallery, Plymouth University. As large scale projection onto gallery wall (premiere, 2 to 5 November 2009)