The DIY filmmaking duo of Bev Zalcock and Sara Chambers has been collaborating for a few decades now, producing underground cinema drawing on Eisenstein, Deren and a host of others. On Friday they presented a selection of their work at Birkbeck Cinema.
I had not been to Birkbeck for some years, probably pre-Covid for an earlier Barrelstout night. It was very odd to be out after dark and around lots of people. I am still being cautious, so I sat at the back and looked down on the audience, many of whom also appear in the films.
While I have seen a lot of their work, several films were new to me, including two world premieres. While Bev favours Super 8, Sara is more in the digital realm, so the films are often a mixture of media. Suzi and Brandi in Needlepoint featured old S8 of two friends, which Bev had worked with a needle. Very hands-on. SLAGS, on the other hand, was composed of still photos of friends and the Kent town of Sandgate, which presumably were all digital. Those were the two new films.
Of the older ones Andi Andi was also new to me, featuring a femme biker cooking in full leather, and I recognised Diamanda Galas on the soundtrack. Diamanda was a total shock to me when I first heard her in the 1980s, thanks to a goth friend. At some point I played one of her records at the wrong speed and quite liked the effect. In any case, it was good to hear her soundtracking frustrated lesbian desire played out in the domestic sphere.
Humour tends to run through Barrelstout's films and their punny titles reflect this. Among the films not shown were Oh, Odessa! and Mad, Bad and Barking, but these may come back at some point. There was a mention of re-editing some of the older films, which was intriguing.
Well worth a journey out on a Friday night and I also got to see some lovely spring flowers in the gardens around Bloomsbury.