The Afterlight is a 2021 British experimental supercut art film directed and assembled by Charlie Shackleton.
Summary The film, produced by Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing and Shackleton, and distributed by their studio Loop, consists of scenes of actors from old films who are no longer alive. The only copy of the Afterlight exists on a single 35mm film print, so that every time the film plays it will gradually erode until eventually it will diminish entirely and become a lost film. Featuring cinematography from Robbie Ryan and composed of films from the 1960s or before,American Cinematheque the film is entirely in black and white.
Films featured on The Afterlight The Asphalt Jungle (1950) In a Lonely Place (1950) Late Spring (1949)
Reception Jonathan Romney, writing for the British Film Institute, gave a positive review of the Afterlight, stating that "placed together, the images evoke a post-death existence, perfect, poetic and yet irreducibly desolate," and favourably compared the film to the 2010 supercut art installation The Clock. Adrian Hui of the Michigan Daily gave a more mixed review, praising its concept and "seamless [editing] between shots from different films as if they were the same film and pieces of dialogue from different films," but stated that as an experimental film, the Afterlight was "not experimental enough," arguing that the film was "not quite bold enough in pushing the boundaries" of its source material.
Release The Afterlight had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on 15 October 2021. , the film has screened publicly 56 times according to its official website:
Screenings
15 October 2021: BFI London Film Festival, London, England 17 October 2021: BFI London Film Festival, London, England 6 November 2021: Cinecity: The Brighton Film Festival, Brighton, England 10 November 2021: Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds, England 25 November 2021: Cambridge Film Festival, Cambridge, England 4 March 2022: Campus Theatre, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, United States 25 March 2022: Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States 31 March 2022: Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark 4 May 2022: Prismatic Ground, Queens, New York City, United States 11 May 2022: Chicago Film Society, Chicago, Illinois, United States 14 May 2022: Ragtag Cinema, Columbia, Missouri, United States 16 May 2022: MDFF Selects, Toronto, Canada 19 May 2022: Visuals, Montréal, Canada 22 May 2022: Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, United States 24 May 2022: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, United States 26 May 2022: Bellwether Series, Amherst, Massachusetts, United States 31 May 2022: George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York, United States 29 June 2022: BFI Southbank, London, England 30 June 2022: King Street Cinema, Ipswich, England 2 July 2022: Docs Ireland, Belfast, Northern Ireland 3 July 2022: Irish Film Institute, Dublin, Ireland 6 July 2022: The Electric, Birmingham, England 10 July 2022: Broadway Cinema, Nottingham, England 14 July 2022: HOME, Manchester, England 17 July 2022: Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales 22 July 2022: Watershed, Bristol, England 24 July 2022: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne, England 27 July 2022: Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, Scotland 29 July 2022: Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland 31 July 2022: Genesis Cinema, London, England 2 August 2022: Roxie Theater, San Francisco, California, United States 7 August 2022: Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia 9 August 2022: Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia 18 August 2022: QAGOMA, Brisbane, Australia 20 August 2022: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 23 August 2022: Aero Theatre, Los Angeles, California, United States 17 September 2022: Camden International Film Festival, Camden, Maine, United States 7 October 2022: Refocus Film Festival, Iowa City, Iowa, United States 8 October 2022: Refocus Film Festival, Iowa City, Iowa, United States 15 October 2022: Widescreen Weekend, Bradford, England 21 October 2022: Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, New York, United States 24 October 2022: Yale Film Archive, New Haven, Connecticut, United States 1 November 2022: The Grand Illusion, Seattle, Washington, United States 25 November 2022: Austrian Film Museum, Vienna, Austria 6 February 2023: Warwick Student Cinema, Coventry, England 2 March 2023: Showroom Cinema, Sheffield, England 10 March 2023: DCA, Dundee, Scotland 29 March 2023: Forum Cinema, Hexham, England 6 April 2023: Lux, Nijmegen, Netherlands 10 June 2023: BFI Southbank, London, England 14 July 2023: Municipal Museum, Marienbad, Czech Republic 21 November 2023: The Regent, Christchurch, England 30 November 2023: The Ultimate Picture Palace, Oxford, England 10 April 2024: Kino Iluzjon, Warsaw, Poland 15 April 2024: Kino Iluzjon, Warsaw, Poland 12 May 2024: Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds, England 15 November 2024: Romuva Cinema, Kaunas, Lithuania
Loss After its screening at the Hyde Park Picture House, the 35mm print disappeared in transit to Lisbon, where it was due to be screened at the Cinemateca Portuguesa. Shackleton initially declared the film lost in a post on X, but announced two weeks later that the print had arrived in Lisbon.
See also Bill Morrison - American experimental filmmaker similar in content List of black-and-white films produced since 1966 Film preservation nostalgia - 1971 Hollis Frampton film similar in structure
References
External links