Our Selves
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Articles by Our Selves
theartsdesk Q&A: Toby Jones on 'Mr Burton' and 'Mr Bates Versus the Post Office'
He wouldn't teach English, Toby Jones says. But drama? "Maybe," he pauses, "drama in the widest possible sense of the word, because it is an ever-expanding field, I suppose." It's certainly an exciting playground for the Hammersmith-born character actor, who since the early '90s has elevated dozens of movies and TV films and series.
Live Review: Squid - The Leadmill, Sheffield 22.02.2025
On a chilly February night, a packed out Leadmill paid host to a dynamic show by experimental post-punk outfit Squid. The band seamlessly navigated through their diverse catalogue, blending together contemplative, hypnotic and energetic moments throughout their set. Ollie Judge’s (vocals/drums) urgent vocals and driving rhythms anchored the performance, while Laurie Nankivell (bass guitar/trumpet) and Arthur Leadbetter (keys) shifted between bringing groove and melody throughout.
Pariah Genius: John Deakin, The Psychobiography of a Photographer
Artists: The Estate of Francis Bacon; Anonymous Bosch; John Deakin; Jock McFadyen; Susan Stenger Curated by Iain Sinclair. Curated by the great London writer Iain Sinclair, Pariah Genius: John Deakin, The Psychobiography of a Photographer presents a rare and unique opportunity to see iconic original prints by John Deakin once owned by Francis Bacon (bearing Bacon’s paint and fingermarks, their use in his own artworks palpable) plus works by Anonymous Bosch, Jock McFadyen RA and Susan Stenger.
Pariah Genius: John Deakin, The Psychobiography of a Photographer
An exhibition, curated by Iain Sinclair, featuring original John Deakin photographic prints, courtesy of the Francis Bacon Estate. By The Swedenborg Society Swedenborg House The Swedenborg Society 20/21 Bloomsbury Way London WC1A 2TH United Kingdom About this event 7 hours An exhibition held in conjunction with the launch of Iain Sinclair’s new book Pariah Genius, published by CHEERIO Publishing. In partnership with CHEERIO Publishing and London Review Bookshop.
Pariah Genius: John Deakin, The Psychobiography of a Photographer
‘…an engrossing, utterly unique portrait of a man who some felt was a fallen angel, and others, the devil himself.’ (CHEERIO) An exhibition held in conjunction with the launch of Iain Sinclair’s new book Pariah Genius, published by CHEERIO Publishing. In partnership with CHEERIO Publishing and London Review Bookshop.
Swedenborg's Lusthus - Announcements - e-flux
Part reliquary, part sanctum and part tourist attraction, Emanuel Swedenborg’s lusthus has long been an object of pilgrimage and curiosity. Described as early as 1766 as “a kind of temple in which he often retired for contemplation” with “dim religious light” it once served as the site of his visionary experiences and it has since been used as a hideout for a gang of thieves, a house of repose, the site of musical performances and poetry incantations.
10 great walking films
Cinema loves journeys. As a structuring tool, creating a long or short journey is one of the commonest occurrences in film; one that provides a physical beginning and end to a narrative. While a multitude of directors and genres have toyed with the potential mapping various journeys via transport – the road movie in particular – there’s something far more dramatic in showing characters that determinedly walk to where they want to go.
Premiere: Prudence’s dark perspective says ‘It’s Useless’ - a rich textured piece of shimmering gold, preceding new album ‘Negatives’.
Crystalline, razor sharp guitars immediately focus attention on Prudence‘s stately anthemic single ‘It’s Useless’: they ring out like bells as the steady paced track commences with an euphoric, effortless march. With shades of The Verve in its psychedelic magnificence and singer Tom Crandles’s vocals, this is a shimmering track that we are honoured to premiere here at Backseat Mafia. ‘It’s Useless’ comes off Prudence’s forthcoming album ‘Negatives’ which is due out on Friday, 26 August 2022.
This walking life - stepping out with David Llewellyn
//= do_shortcode('[in-content-square]')?> David Llewellyn In mid-June I saw a promotion for the British Red Cross’s ‘Miles for Refugees’ campaign, raising money for refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere. It mentioned the UK Govt.’s stalling and inaction on this, and suggested that aspiring fundraisers might walk 108 miles, the distance from Lviv to the safe crossing points of the Polish border.
By Our Selves (2015) directed by Andrew Kötting • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd
Synopsis Andrew Kötting's film retraces John Clare's journey from Epping Forest to Northamptonshire accompanied by a straw bear. Cast Crew Details Genres Cast Toby Jones Freddie Jones Iain Sinclair Alan Moore Simon Kövesi MacGillivray Eden Kötting Andrew Kötting Studio Country Language Popular reviews More Reviewed on The Geek Show.
Exclusive: Brooklyn’s Varsity Star records us an exclusive takeover mix
To celebrate Brooklyn-based musician and producer Varsity Stars’ debut on Small Pond Records (release date 05/11/21), we present a solid Takeover mix for your listening pleasure. Varsity Star is an electronic musician and upright bassist who grew up in Boston and spent time playing with various bands as a multi-genre sideman. After deciding to go it alone and produce music on a synth and Ableton, he had a spell living in Berlin.
See: The monochrome video for Trevor Sensor’s ‘Chiron, Galactus’: an instant classic of mourning, cathartic Americana
ILLINOIS singer-songwriter Trevor Sensor, who beguiled hearts and minds with a clutch of EPs and his debut album, Andy Warhol’s Dream, on Jagjaguwar back around 2017-18, has been away, grown his hair into a leonine mane, and is back with a new album on High Black Desert Records come mid-June. He’s collected together a clutch of beautifully observed rural tales from the viewpoint of a dusty drifter, for that second long-player, On Account of Exile Vol.
The Whalebone Box review: Andrew Kötting journeys into his daughter’s dreams | Sight & Sound
Eden Kötting in The Whalebone Box Early in his first feature film, Gallivant, Andrew Kötting explained that he’d “been told many times that Eden’s life expectancy wasn’t very good”. Eden, his daughter, was born with a rare genetic disorder called Joubert syndrome and has gone on to defy the odds and become one of Kötting’s frequent collaborators and muses.
The pattern under the plough: the ‘old, weird Britain’ on film | from the Sight and Sound archives
Early on in Alfred the Great (1969), a Dark Ages costume drama seldom screened today, the young King Alfred (David Hemmings), clad in a fighting suit of red and gold, is spattered with blood in a ferocious ambush on an army of marauding Danes. As the orgy of impalings, stabbings, spearings and dismemberments reaches fever pitch in a welter of clangs and war cries, the camera suddenly begins to rise up, affording a kestrel’s-eye view of the combat.
News: Open City Documentary Festival - Online Archive
This year’s festival will be our tenth edition. Ahead of the festival, we had been thinking about ways we could commemorate and celebrate the nine editions that preceded it. While at the moment, this, like many activities, seems somewhat of a strange thing to be doing, looking wistfully back to the past rather than worrying about the future has felt like a nice thing to do.
The Whalebone box review | Sight & Sound
Eden Kötting in The Whalebone Box Early in his first feature film, Gallivant, Andrew Kötting explained that he’d “been told many times that Eden’s life expectancy wasn’t very good”. Eden, his daughter, was born with a rare genetic disorder called Joubert syndrome and has gone on to defy the odds and become one of Kötting’s frequent collaborators and muses.
Andrew Kötting: The Specter of Dreams
Andrew Kötting's The Whalebone Box is receiving its digital premiere exclusively on MUBI in partnership with HOME Artist. The film is showing April 3 - May 2, 2020 in the United Kingdom. The Whalebone Boxsees artist, filmmaker, and creative whirlwind Andrew Kötting reuniting with Iain Sinclair for yet another remarkable collaboration after their critically acclaimed and ground breaking Journeyworks jaunts comprising Swandown, By Our Selves,and Edith Walks.
Six Of The Best: Jo Clement
Darlington born, Newcastle based poet Jo Clement releases Moveable Type, a book of poems inspired by the rich heritage of her working-class Gypsy upbringing and reflecting on the poetics and politics of Gypsy identity. Complete with foreword from fellow poet Sean O’Brien and illustrations courtesy of wood engravings by Thomas Bewick, the book will be launched at Waterstones, Newcastle on Wednesday 18th March. Ahead of the event, Jo shares with us her six of the best.
Watch Rome, Open City online - BFI Player
Overview A landmark of Italian neorealism often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Roberto Rossellini’s portrait of life under the Nazi Occupation remains remarkable for its sheer immediacy, tension and power.
Toby Jones reads John Clare
Summer pleasures they are gone, like to visions every one, And the cloudy days of Autumn and of Winter cometh on. I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone Far away from heart and eye and for ever far away. Dear heart and can it be that such raptures meet decay?
Rachel Rossin: The Sky is a Gap — ALT/KINO
Rachel Rossin explodes notions of time and space in her new multi-user virtual reality installation at the Zabludowicz Collection “Time and space are modes by which we live,” stated Albert Einstein, “and not conditions in which we live.” These two modes form the crux of Rachel Rossin’s The Sky is a Gap (2017-19), a multi-user iteration of which is currently the primary element of a new exhibition Stalking the Trace at the Zabludowicz Collection.
Watch By Our Selves - BFI Player
Overview The latest psycho-geographical excursion from Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair follows in the footsteps of a four-day walk by English poet John Clare. Declared insane in 1841, Clare absconded from him Essex asylum to undertake a 90-mile walk to his home near Northampton, under the delusion that he was to be reunited with his first wife.
10 great British experimental feature films
“The actors are tired,” says an actor – is it an actor? – in this strange, enigmatic film by Ben Rivers about post-colonialism and creative vampirism. The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers takes its name from a story by Paul Bowles set in Morocco. Initially, it stalks the trail of a new film production by European auteur Oliver Laxe, trekking the Atlas mountains and undergoing physical hardship.
Film of the week: Arcadia remixes rural Britain | Sight & Sound
After the critical buzz generated by Scottish filmmaker Paul Wright’s first feature, For Those in Peril (2013), a striking, hallucinatory piece about a survivor’s grief after a tragedy at sea, it’s perhaps a surprise that his follow-up is a found-footage collage on the theme of the British landscape.
Film of the week: Lek and the Dogs is a psychogeographic tour of apocalypse | Sight & Sound
French actor Xavier Tchili first played a character named Lek for Andrew Kötting in the 2001 film This Filthy Earth. A reimagining of Emile Zola’s 1887 novel La Terre by way of John Berger’s Pig Earth, it channelled Bosch and quoted the Polish surrealist filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk in a familial tragedy of myth, mud and madness. In it, Lek was a foreign farm labourer, an observer and scapegoat (“Away, darky! Away!”) who was ultimately unable to convince a young woman to escape her plight.
Lek and the Dogs review – A haunting story
Lek and the Dogs opens on a desolate landscape, completely empty except for the naked figure we see scrambling across the ground on all fours. Is he man or beast? At this point in Lek’s life, he doesn’t seem to t comfortably in either world. This new film by British maverick Andrew Kötting is a loose adaptation of the acclaimed play ‘Ivan and the Dogs’ by Hattie Naylor, which was inspired by the true story of Ivan Mishukov.
Looking Back To Look Forward - Kirsten Norrie Profiled
Often trying to sum up the work of multi-disciplinarian artists can be a fool’s errand. In the case of this Scottish folklorist, visionary, experimental poet, singer, performance artist and actor, focussing in tightly on just one aspect of her practice is initially the only way to present a clear picture of what she does, writes John Doran. Kirsten Norrie is an artist and writer who trained at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford.
A Jaunt: Director Andrew Kötting Talks Gallivant 20 Years On
Gallivant was the first feature film by ramshackle wanderer, Andrew Kötting. It premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival 20 years ago this September and arguably changed the landscape of British documentary cinema after it. For Kötting, it began a string of feature work that followed eccentric journeys into landscapes, history and people that still continues and produces interesting work today.
Edith Walks (2017) review: Andrew Kötting makes England loopy again
Amid widespread anxiety regarding departure from the European Union, an associated increase in hate crime and vocal racism and the dangling threat or promise of a second referendum on Scottish independence, the question of what constitutes a specifically English heritage – let alone how pride or pleasure might be sourced therein – is more fraught than ever.
Edith Walks review
Where will the next big trail be? Andrew Ko?tting embarks on another of his rambling, shambling pilgrimages. The future of humanity will be okay as long as artist, filmmaker and galavanting bohemian, Andrew Ko?tting, just keeps on keeping on. He’s Chaucer with an iPhone, capturing the bruised landscapes of Olde Albion and keeping record of his rambling, shambling pilgrimages, all in memory of fallen eccentrics.
In quest of the Romantic tradition in British film: Penda’s Fen
The Blu-ray release of Penda’s Fen (1974), written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke, should cement its status as a timeless drama about modern England’s connection to its pre-Christian roots. It celebrates not the perfidious Albion cynically lionised by the power-hoarding establishment, but the England of the last pagan ruler, Penda (d.
This week’s new releases on BFI Player+ (4th March 2017)
Heard of BFI Player? Well, there’s also BFI Player+, a subscription service that offers an all-you-can-eat selection of hand-picked classics. Every Friday, Mark Kermode highlights one of the collection’s titles with a video introduction. This week, it’s The Railway Children. The adaptation of E. Nesbit’s 1906 novel sees three children and their mother forced to swap Edwardian city luxury for genteel rural poverty up north.
An Audience with Toby Jones
The leading actor of stage, screen and radio Toby Jones talks about his life and career and about how he interprets the written word in his performances. He is renowned for the range of his work and for his intelligent and nuanced character acting.
Things To Do Today In London: Friday 1 July 2016
Always be in the know about what's going on in London by signing up to our free email newsletters. FREE OUTDOOR YOGA: Exercise your body and mind next to the Serpentine with Fluro Friday Yoga. BYOM (Bring Your Own Mat). Free, just turn up, 7.15am WAR FILMS: Marking the 100th anniversary of the release of The Battle of the Somme, see how war has inspired filmmakers at the Imperial War Museum's new exhibition.
Literature About Medicine May Be All That Can Save Us
Literature About Medicine May Be All That Can Save Us The language gap frustrates your visit to your doctor. He seems not to understand the problem because you can’t describe it lucidly enough. You don’t understand the proposed treatment because he can’t explain it. I’ve sometimes foresworn medical help because the complexity of voicing what is wrong has felt heavier than the sickness itself.
RIDM: un hommage א Chantal Akerman
La programmation de la 18e édition des Rencontres internationales du documentaire (RIDM) de Montréal a été dévoilée mardi. Le public aura droit à une sélection de 144 documentaires en provenance de 42 pays. Parmi les films à surveiller, on compte notamment le dernier opus de Pascal Sanchez, Les vaillants, qui relate l'histoire des résidents d'un HLM du quartier Saint-Michel de Montréal. Ce long-métrage sera présenté en ouverture des RIDM.
Voir - Voir.ca
En clôture, les RIDM proposent l’un des films les plus originaux et acclamés de l’année festivalière. Entre fiction et documentaire, Olmo and the Seagull de Petra Costa et Lea Glob nous fait partager le quotidien d’un couple d’artistes bouleversé par la grossesse. Une œuvre lumineuse sur les rapports entre la vie et la création.
Why Alan Moore thinks Northampton is a kind of cultural black hole
Did you see Northampton's Alan Moore starring as himself on... By Our Selves, from John Clare in Epping Forest to Alan... This is the writer Alan Moore's explanation for it being the final destination for so many interesting minds throughout history. It is also the last stop in By Our Selves, a new film inspired by the poet John Clare's 1841 march into madness when he set out on foot in search of a lost love and ended up in Northampton General Lunatic Asylum.
London-y Films To See In October
All you movie lovers out there must be bubbling over with excitement, for October is the highlight of London’s cinematic year — yes, the BFI London Film Festival hits town! For two weeks our cinemas are brim full of the very best new, critically acclaimed films that 2015 has to offer with plenty of stuff connected to the capital.
By Our Selves - a film by Andrew Kötting
Andrew Kötting's film By Our Selves retraces John Clare's journey from Epping Forest to Northamptonshire accompanied by a straw bear. By Our Selves retraces John Clare's journey on foot from Epping Forest up into Northamptonshire. The film will feature Iain Sinclair, Alan Moore, Toby Jones and a Straw Bear. The film focuses on two figures, sometimes Andrew Kötting, sometimes Toby Jones as the middle-aged John Clare. As they channel, in their own fashion, the psychic wound exposed by Clare.
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