For the last two years, we’ve worked with The Smalls and their network of filmmakers to create a series of short films that complement our annual theme programming. You might remember The Art of Change in 2018 and Life Rewired in 2019. We started 2020 with Inside Out, a year that would ‘showcase the work of artists who found pioneering ways to articulate their innermost thoughts, feelings and desires, and how this can help us to better understand ourselves and empathise with each other’s experience of the world’. But then 2020 happened, the Barbican had to close and the majority of events that were part of Inside Out were sadly cancelled.
However, our film commission with The Smalls continued, admittedly with its own challenges. How do you create films during lockdown? What impact has coronavirus had on film production and filmmakers? A series of six films became four as two of our commissioned directors were unable to complete their film in the new circumstances. Film studios and facilities around the world closed their doors, cast and crew faced illness and we all found ourselves adapting to the challenge of staying creative and inspired in a time of so much uncertainty and change. Perhaps something that chimes well with the original thinking behind our Inside Out theme…
This December – almost six months later than originally planned – we’re delighted to present our series of four Inside Out Shorts. Directed by Lexi Kiddo, Laura Nasir Tamara, Natasha Mwansa and Roxy Rezvany, these films explore identity, love, mindfulness and our sense of self through performance, storytelling and even guided mediation.
Each film is accompanied by an interview with the filmmaker as they reflect on the year, the process of creating films in 2020 and what the future for filmmakers and cinema looks like.
