Short movies by Vivienne Dick (I)

The first compilation of short films by Vivienne Dick combines three works directed between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, reflecting the filmmaker’s return to the UK and Ireland: Images Ireland (1988), Two Pigeons (1990) and London Suite (1990). 

Two pigeons (UK, 1990, 4’38’’, HD Video from Super-8 Film)

Observational footage of people in parks, running, having lunch, feeding ducks, reading, sunbathing etc to the sound of jazz saxophonist Lol Cockhill singing a 1930’s song called Two Little Pigeons. Part two of the film contrasts this civilised ambiance with images of the half dynamited remains of Beckton Gas Works, and a sequence featuring a domestic scene amongst the rubble where two women have tea to music by Martin Denny. An homage to Jack Smith.  

London Suite (UK, 1990, 28’, Colour, HD Video from 16mm)

London’s cultural diversity unfolds as Vivienne Dick portrays her friends, their lifestyles, what they talk about and how they talk. In this kaleidoscopic arrangement of encounters and re-enactments, equal weight is given to the passionate and the banal.

Images Ireland (IE, 1988, Colour, HD Video from Super-8 Film)

Ireland in the early 80s. The fragments of rural and urban life blend document with fiction showing a teenager in love, a riot outside the British Embassy, a picket at Mountjoy prison, dinnertime in Cork with Nell McCafferty on the radio. Soundtrack by Steve Nieve.