News - Real to Reel: The Craft Film Festival

Real to Reel: The Craft Film Festival announces its line-up...



The festival, which is part of London Craft Week, includes a Manga-inspired animation, Star Wars shadows puppetry, a humorous take on the artisanal food movement and a huge variety of documentaries.



Following an open call, 36 films have been selected from well over 300 submissions and, as diverse as the films are, each looks at our relationship with materials and making in different ways.



Annie Warburton, the Creative Director on the Crafts Council who launched the festival in association with Craft Magazine, said “We’ve put together two evenings of film that offer an intriguing, entertaining mix of genres and styles, from experimental animation to documentary. The resurgence of interest in craft has resulted in a host of beautiful and interesting new films on the topic. Appealing to craft enthusiasts and the wider public alike, this is a rare chance to view them of the big screen.”



Highlights include award winning director Liam Saint-Pierre’s documentary following artist and inventor Dominic Wilcox on his quest to transform the mundane into something extraordinary and Lionel T Dean’s tribute to 1950’s Japanese science fiction T-Rex versus The Gorilla: Quest for the Stone. The festival also features the UK premiere of Gill & Gill, which looks at humanity’s relationship with stone through the stories of two masters; rock climber John Gill and letter cutter Eric Gill.



More names to look out for in the programme include: glass maker Matt Durran, paper artist Su Blackwell, Studio Swine and shoe designer Marloes ten Bhomer and a film featuring the likes of Sir Terence Conran, designer Paul Smith and architect Amanda Levete



Other highlights include

• The Survivor Sofa Story, directed by Paul Wyatt, which follows a team of designers, including Ella Doran and Xenia Mosley, as they rescue a settee bound for landfill and transform it into something new.


• 
  


• The Wish List, which asks some of the most illustrious names in architecture and design “What have you always wanted in your home, but never been able to find?” and challenged them to design it.


• 
  


• Sewing Stories, which follows UK based textile artist Harriet Riddell’s journey across India with her sewing machine, taking pictures of places and people.


• 
  


• New Hope: WayanKulit, directed by Gloria Kurnik, which brings together traditional Malaysian shadow puppetry and Star Wars to uplifting effect.


• 
  


• Family Business: The Secret recipe of the Blue Plaques by Cat McShane which introduces us to the Ashworths who make the ubiquitous blue plaques that can be spotted all around London.


• 
  


• Mind Over Matter, directed by Vincent Skoglund, where we meet designer Anton Alvarez and his extraordinary Thread Wrapping Machine.

Real to Reel: The Craft Film Festival is the first UK film festival dedicated to craft and making and takes place on the evenings of 4th and 5th May at Picturehouse Central in London's West End, with a carefully curated programme of different films shown each night.



To see the full programme and buy tickets, please visit the Crafts Council website.



Image - Craft Council