Backcomb, 1995

1995, 16mm, col, sound, 6min

In Backcomb the demonic is unleashed on domestic space. It takes the form of two of femininity’s mildest tokens, hair and embroidery, that serve here in the creation of a sexualised surrealist experience. Within the claustrophobic space of a table-lay, a forceful and erectile mass of hair comes alive and slithers across its surface. The hair probes into vessels and punches through the cloth till finally order overturns and all smashes to the ground.

Directed:
Sarah Pucill
Produced:
Maggie Ellis
Funded:
Carlton TV and London Production Fund
Art Direction:
Alix Harwood
Camera:
Belinda Parsons, Sarah Pucill
Camera Assistance:
Sarah Gardiner
Performers:
Karen Ashton
Dubbing Mixer:
Andy Sears
Edit & Sound:
Sarah Pucill
1995-97
Carlton Television, UK; London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; Mix: New York Film Festival; Toronto Short Film Festival; The Raw and the Cooked, Ruby Rich and Chris Darke, The Fourth ICA Biennial of Independent Film and Video Art, London; Feminale Cologne; Montreal Image and Nation International Queer Film and Video Festival; Ankara Film Festival, Turkey;  Femme Totale, Dortmund, Germany; Womens Film Festival Norwich (nominated for best experimental film).
1998
Tate Britain, curated by Gary Thomas (retrospective)
Lux, London (retrospective)
1999
‘Sweetie. Female Identity in British Video’ curated by Cristiana Perrella and Maria Rosa Sossai, British School at Rome (1999)
2000
Lux, London DNET Festival of Electronic and Digital Art
2002
291 Gallery (retrospective)
2003
The UK/Canadian Video Exchange, curated by Cate Elwes, South London Gallery, TRANZ<>TECH 2003, Toronto
Hair The Show curated by Marcia Farquhar and Peggy Atherton, Tablet Gallery London
2004
Feminale, Cologne, Germany
2006
Greenwich Picture House (retrospective)
‘Light Reading’ series, NO.W.HERE Lab, London (retrospective)
2008
New York Filmmakers Co-Op Screening, curated by Caroline Koebel
Millennium, New York (retrospective)
The Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle Uon Tyne (retrospective)
2009
Anthology Film Archives, New York
Mass Art Film Society, Boston, US
Arsenale, Berlin
2010
Tate Modern, London, (part of Vivienne Dick Retrospective)
Light Industry, New York, (part of Vivienne Dick retrospective)
2011
BFI Southbank (retrospective) as part of the LUX DVD launch of Sarah Pucill Film Shorts 1990-2010
2012
Madrid Experimental Film Festival (retrospective)
Parasol Unit, Curated Gil Leng LUX
2017
Programme curated by Vivienne Dick, Irish Film Institute, Dublin 10 October

2023

 

“Milk” Exhibition at The Wellcome Institute,  30 March = 10 September