A random film pick that I very much enjoyed. Not the most innovative film by any stretch, but a great little compact thriller done really well – but I was overall most struck with the central character heroine Darby Thorne. Understated, distinctly female without being ‘girly’, vulnerable but tough, plausibly badass and resilient, and flawed but ultimately the most morally centered character. Nicely done.
It is TEN YEARS since I was in The Wedding Present for a few days. I kept a comic book diary at the time and have decided to make a mini comic of it as a 10th anniversary thing. If you’d like a copy, you can get it for a pittance (£3) from this link!
“To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this mini-adventure, we’re releasing this 30+ page homemade comic book diary of Missy Sleazoid’s experience in 2014 of being on tour as the bass player in semi-legendary indie band The Wedding Present for a few days that summer. Paul Dorrington also returned to TWP for the adventure, who had previously been the band’s guitarist for a number of years in the ’90s. This charmingly shonky, amateur hand drawn comic (hence the low price!) captures the spirit of the adventure, amusing anecdotes and observations of the trip. These comics are made and shipped on a print-on-demand basis.”
My week on tour with The Wedding Present comic
Work is a difficult, unpleasant place at the moment. I love my job very much and think it is a privilege to work in the line I do, I am sure I learn more from teaching than I pass on to others. Universities are not bricks and mortar and glass, they are the people who work there – their expertise, their knowledge and experience. But it is the people who are being culled at the moment, a huge amount of colleagues (and the extent of this is truly shocking) are leaving in a short space of time. The institution is losing what truly creates its character, strengths and reputation. We don’t best remember the buildings where we were educated, we remember those that taught us.
For the huge amount of people leaving it has, at least, been to some degree their decision, albeit with a strong institutional nudge and a pressured time frame. For the rest of us who remain (for now), we are left in a shocked daze, mourning a vast number of colleagues (with whom we’ve worked for perhaps decades) being ripped away from us all at once. I hear the words ‘grief’, ‘trauma’ and ‘mourning’ mentioned on frequent occasions and colleagues have said they can’t talk about this with their immediate team as it’s all ‘too intense and emotional’. Tears are common in offices of late. The psychological fallout of this is immense.
I can barely bring myself to think about it directly most days in order to get through my regular tasks, but not acknowledging the extent of this upset or being honest about my own feelings here will be equally damaging. Of course, our colleagues’ workloads still exist, so will be no doubt bestowed on the rest of us who will be ‘invited to volunteer’ to take on extra tasks. We remaining colleagues hold our breath to see what we are left with when the dust settles. The students are left in shock at suddenly losing people who they thought would be supporting them through their time with us.
We can only wonder what is coming next, if the financial needs of this first cull haven’t been met, which of us will be next asked to leave (and on what far less generous terms)? Which courses will still even exist? The litany of unknowns is awful. Many of us have no option other than to wait and see, ride out this seemingly neverending, torturous chaos. I’m ok (I think?), but I need to acknowledge how truly difficult this whole experience continues to be for everyone involved. All I can hope to do is weather the storm.
Welcome to FFStival! I am proud to announce this new film festival created by myself and colleague Mel Gourlay! Our aim, in creating this international annual film festival, is to highlight the work of women and women’s achievements in all incarnations of cinema. Inspired by events showcasing films made by women (such as Scotland’s Femspectives), we want to recentre the focus of film history and the future of the industry on projects creatively led by women. Sheffield has a rich cultural history and we hope to further develop the city’s reputation as a hub for excellence supporting diversity in film in the North of England.
Working in partnership with the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield, the festival directors have track records in film studies, filmmaking and higher education and felt that the time is ripe for championing awareness of films women are producing, not only providing a platform for newer, younger filmmakers but also highlighting work by more established women in the field. We hope this will inspire women filmmakers, extending production, scholarship and discourse across a variety of fields.
Taking cues from the excellent international work of Sheffield DocFest, Sensoria Festival and Showroom Cinema in promoting diversity and the work of women creatives, we identified the need for a festival to champion the work of female-presenting filmmakers exclusively. In the present day there still seems to be space and a desire for intersectional events such as this, not simply examining how cinema relates to intersectional feminisms, but also how women’s voices can be and are expressed across all types of cinematic genres. We want to move beyond simply showing that women can make films – this should already be a given – we want to shift the conversation to break preconceptions of the types of films women are making, the issues films by women address and the unique challenges faced by female filmmakers.
missytassles 