The ninth annual Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival will take place this month in the Scottish Borders, with a showcase of experimental film over seven venues.
The festival line-up includes four feature-length films, 11 shorts programmes, three guest-curated programmes, four expanded cinema performances, and ten moving-image installations. This year’s programme also includes 39 world premieres.
Highlights include the UK festival premiere of Ceremony by Turner Prize nominee Phil Collins, the world premiere of a performance by French maestro and Alchemy regular Jacques Perconte, the UK premieres of feature films by Stephen Broomer (Canada), Karolina Breguła (Poland) and Yashaswini Raghunandan (India) and a programme of shorts curated by Crossroads, San Francisco Cinematheque’s annual film festival.
Also featured in the festival are programmes dedicated to avant-garde filmmakers Barbara Meter, Esther Urlus and Deborah S. Phillips; as well as the presence of writer/actor/director Gerda Stevenson, who will lead this year’s Film Walk on Monday 6th May, with a poem specially commissioned by Alchemy in response to Margaret Tait (1918-1999).
The closing event, culminating in a screening of Tait’s Orquil Burn in Wilton Dean Village Hall, will be the first in the Scottish Borders to contribute to Margaret Tait 100, an ongoing celebration of Scotland’s pioneering filmmaker and poet on the occasion of her centenary.
The 2019 festival will expand its screening programme to encompass a much-improved second screening room at Unit Four on Towerdykeside — where expanded cinema performances will also take place. Regular screenings and artist Q&As will take place in Heart of Hawick and Unit Four, while installations will be held in former shop spaces at 1 and 5 Buccleuch Road and 53 High Street.
When: 2nd – 6th May 2019
Where: Hawick, Scottish Borders
£: Ticket prices vary, depending on the event
More info: alchemyfilmfestival.org.uk