Age is…
AGE IS…
by Stephen Dwoskin
2012, France & United Kingdom, Color, DCP, 1.85, Stereo
Synopsis
« AGE IS… » is a new feature meditating on the subjective experience and cultural concepts of ageing. The film is an ode to the texture, the beauty, the singularity of aging faces and silhouettes, a hypnotic poem in the « Dwoskinian » meaning of the term which is long ob- servations of very tiny details. A gesture, a pause, a look, a moment. Throughout his films intimacy has always played the leading role and this is also true for « Age is… », all the faces being those of close friends, of their relatives and sometimes even of Stephen himself.
Festivals
2012 Locarno Film Festival – Official Selection – WORLD PREMIERE <link to festival’s website>
Viennale
Torino Film Festival
Presskit
Director’s Biography
Stephen Dwoskin was born in 1939 in Brooklyn. He contracted polio at the age of 9 and was left disabled. After working as a photographer and graphic designer, Dwoskin shot and produced his own films — the first of these, Asleep, was awarded a prize at the Venice Biennale. In 1964, he moved to Britain on a Fulbright Fellowship and became the driving force behind an independent cinema movement (the London Film-Makers’ Cooperative). He worked for a time on subjective and personal experimental films and later documentaries on artists such as photographer Bill Brandt or the Ballet Nègre company. More recently his film-making has became increasingly introspective as his mobility diminished.
Dwoskin’s entire oeuvre is an attempt to explore the issue of voyeurism and of the relationship with the Other. Dyn Amo records a sleazy striptease stage show in which two young women are abused by a gigolo in a cruel and haunting sadomasochistic ritual.
All of his early films (Alone, Trixi, Moment, Times For) subtly deconstruct the conventional system of the male gaze that would later be addressed in a gender studies context by the so-called “Fourth Look” in cinema.
Without turning his back on his earlier experiments in testing the boundaries, Dwoskin then made fictional films, including an adaptation of Wedekind’ s Tod und Teufel, in which voids and slips are filmed during acts of speech, rather than the characters and their actions. In some cases, Dwoskin foregrounded his own impaired body (Behindert) or devoted an entire film to the disruption caused by disability in a standardized society, with comical results (Outside In). After making films dealing with fear and pain, and then remembrance and childhood, using home movie footage of his childhood capers (Trying to Kiss the Moon), he returned to experimentation using a digital camera and the computer where he could work more easily from his wheelchair.
Stephen Dwoskin died on June 28th in London.
Read more :
July, 5th 2012 – Stephen Dwoskin died in London on June 28, 2012
Selected Filmography
2012 AGE IS…
2009 DREAM HOUSE (installation)
2008 MOM
2008 ASCOLTA !
2007 PHONE STRIP
2007 PHONE PORTRAIT
2007 THE SUN AND THE MOON
2006/2007 NIGHTSHOTS (1,2,3) (short)
2005 OBLIVION
2004 VISITORS (short)
2003 LOST DREAMS (short)
2003 GRANDPERE’PEAR (short)
2003 DEAR FRANCES (in memoriam) (short)
2003 DAD (short)
2002 ANOTHER TIME
2002 SOME FRIENDS (apart) (short)
1991-2000 VIDEO LETTERS – (with Robert Kramer)
2001 INTOXICATED BY MY ILLNESS (parts 1 & 2 “Intensive Care”) (short)
2000 INTOXICATED BY MY ILLNESS (part 1) (short)
1997 PAIN IS …
1992 FACE OF OUR FEAR
1990 FACE ANTHEA
1990 L’ESPRIT DE BRENDAN BEHAN (short)
1986 BALLET BLACK
1983 SHADOWS FROM LIGHT
1981 OUTSIDE IN
1977 SILENT CRY
1976 KLEINER VOGEL (short)
1976 CENTRAL BAZAAR
1975 GIRL (short)
1975 JUST WAITING (short)
1974 LABOURED PARTY (short)
1974 BEHINDERT (HINDERED)
1973 TOD UND TEUFEL
1972 JESUS BLOOD (short)
1972 DYN AMO
1971 TIMES FOR
1970 TO TEA (short)
1970 C-FILM (short)
1969 TRIXI (short)
1968 MOMENT (short)
1968 TAKE ME (short)
1967 ME MYSELF AND I (short)
1965 DIRTY (short)
1964 SOLILOQUY (short)
1964 CHINESE CHECKERS (short)
1964 NAISSANT (short)
1963 ALONE (short)
1961 AMERICAN DREAM (short)
1961 ASLEEP (short)
Cast & Crew
Writer/Director
Stephen Dwoskin
Produced by
Antoine Barraud, Vincent Wang, Stephen Dwoskin
Associate Producers
Simon Field, Keith Girffith , Véronique Goël, Rachel Bénitah , Philippe Dijon de Monteton
Editors
Stephen Dwoskin, Tatia Shaburishvili
Cinematography
Rachel Benitah, Stephen Dwoskin, Véronique Goël
Sound Design
Philippe Ciompi
Music
Alexander Balanescu
Additional images
Antoine Barraud, Gilles Benardeau, Françoise Bridel, Tonino De Benardi, Mary Dickinson, Michele Fuirer, Rachel Garfield , Samantha Granger, Alexis Kavershine, Anthea Kennedy, S.Louis, Valérie Massadian, Mel Massadian, Leo Mingrone, Arnold Schmidt, Tatia Shaburishvili, Ian Wiblin
in association with Arte France – La Lucarne
in collaboration with Centre national des arts plastiques (Image/mouvement), ministère de la Culture et de la Communication
with the participation of the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée
with the support of
La PROCIREP-Société des Producteurs and ANGOA using public funding by Arts Council England
RAI 3 Fuori Orario