The Space Belongs to Them



Watching films can be such a communal experience - whether thats attending a screening  with friends or passionately discussing a film and what it represents. This idea of community and the different way these bonds are created is what unites the films in this programme. Stan Lathan’s Statues Hardly Ever Smile(1971) documents the experience of students local to the Brooklyn museum learning more about history. They contort their bodies with ease and imagination to describe their favourite works in the museum and equally manoeuvre themselves away from the box of expectations that were created for them. The short documentary film now also being available in the same museum allows the works of art from history and the young Brooklyn natives to continue to uplift the community.

These same joyful experiences occur across the pond as Jessie Blue depicts in the eponymous barbershop, Fresh Cutz(2018). The buzzing North London salon offers its young patrons a place to learn from their elders, somewhere the whole neighborhood can laugh together and a place to uphold longstanding football rivalries. These short films and our overall programme show that the past and the present are forever intertwined. As Welat(2014) highlights, through the voices of the past that remain ever present in the now deserted town - these communal bonds are longstanding and perhaps strengthen through time.

Depicting these bonds between time and individuals on film then portray clearly the cyclical nature of life experiences. It's presence of film and the conversation held after enable these stories to reach more people and ultimately build a bigger community. 


London Short Film Festival (shortfilms.org.uk) 


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