The Artist's Eye - This Thursday

This Thursday is our first open day where we show a rolling programme of themed films. This week most are made by artists and all are inspired by the canals or water in some way. One project we were really keen to include was Ella Gibb's Night Stop Cinema a pre-cursor to the Floating Cinema from 2000. Yesterday we performed the technical equivalent of complex surgery in order to transfer Ella's VHS documentation of the project onto a DVD to play! 

Today she sent me this lovely image and these details of her original project: 

Ella Gibbs Presented:
Night Stop Cinema
River Lea Valley, East London 4 - 8 September 2000

We'll be showing a document of the live events: 10 mins duration, Camera: Theodor Mukhiguly, Edited by: Ella Gibbs & Theodor Mukhiguly

Ella originally set off from Chesunt and for five days travelled along the River Lea valley with boat "Jubilee", stopping daily at different places. Each night her boat was converted into a cinema first at Chesunt Lock to Under the M25 Bridge, Picketts Lock, Stonebridge Lock and finally to the Robin Hood Pub near Springfield Marina. Audiences were invited to watch the films from the river bank projected onto a screen erected on the boat. All screenings were free.

The Night Stop Cinema programme included selected favourite films of residents and workers in the Lea Valley area. Each night, one short experimental film made by an independent film maker or artist was also shown. The Narrowboat was called Jubilee, (60ft) and was a moving display /exhibition boat. Owned by the Inland Waterways Association and loaned for this project.

Night Stop Cinema was commissioned as part of The Week of Small Miracles; a series of Arts Events along the River Lea Valley, curated by Peter Cusack in 2000. 
The film research team were: Tomoko Takahashi, Amy plant and Tanya Skillen. The projectors, screen and technical set up were by Insight Lighting.

I'm really pleased we can include this project in our programme as I clearly remember going to the screening at the Robin Hood and thinking how fantastic it was at the time.