There Is A Happy Land Further Awaay
2015 | 20 min | United Kingdom
Director: Ben Rivers
Original Format: 16mm
There Is A Happy Land Further Awaay (2015), captures the landscapes of the remote volcanic Republic of Vanuatu archipelago, before they were devastated by Cyclone Pam in early 2015, the footage becoming a ghostly document of an ecosystem now irrevocably altered. A hesitant female voice reads a poem by Henri Michaux, recounting a life lived in a distant land, full of faltering and mistakes. Island imagery of active volcanoes, underwater WW2 debris, children playing, and wrecked boats transform into intangible digital recollections of the island, made on the opposite side of the world. Images of the eroded land merge with eroding film, a lone figure on a boat drifts at sea.
Origin of the Species
2008 | 16 min | United Kingdom
Director: Ben Rivers
Original format: 16mm
In remote Inverness-shire, a 75-year-old man known as S has spent much of his life studying Darwin outside academia. Rivers explores his garden, inventions and self-built home as S reflects on evolution and humanity’s place on Earth. A portrait of one solitary life expands towards the origins of the world and an uncertain future.
Ah, Liberty!
2008 | 20 min | United Kingdom
Director: Ben Rivers
Original format: 16mm
Across the seasons, a family lives, works and plays on a farm in the Scottish wilderness. Children and animals roam freely among junk, machinery and an immense landscape. Through hand-processed widescreen images and fragments of everyday life, Rivers captures an exhilarating and unruly sense of freedom beyond conventional society.
