Guy Sherwin - Short Film Series 1975-2014

Available for the first time on DVD, Guy Sherwin's acclaimed Short Film Series, a unique collection of interconnected 16mm 3 minute films started in 1975. The series is held together by certain formal considerations: each film is three minutes long, i.e. the length of a roll of 16mm film, all films are b/w and silent, and the order in which they are shown is flexible. Apart from this there is a range of imagery from portraiture to still life to travel. The films operate on the border between movement and stillness, revealing their inner logic through an active engagement in looking.

'100' reels of epiphanies, time-lapse studies, ordinary objects and scenes rendered strange and ambiguous.' Michael O'Pray

'Sherwin's hallmark is the direct concentrated image which fully exploits the tonal range of black and white stock. This control is not at all rigid, since its purpose is to capture in the shot a certain kind of freedom and chance in the visible world.' A.L.Rees

'The uniform duration of the films, the overriding concern with light, time and corporeality, the relentless three-minute focus on a single subject or event, are common to all the films and provide a powerful cumulative effect for the viewer. But on a deeper level, what binds these films together and gives them their enduring fascination is the deeply human connection which Sherwin makes between his formal filmmaking concerns and the subjects of his films. These films are all about relationships - between light and darkness, light and camera, camera and subject, subject and filmmaker and viewer, all at once and played out not only on the screen but also in the mysterious conjunction between the projected film and the viewer.' -Andy Ditzler (lux.org.uk)