Confessions to the Mirror, 2016

Confessions To The Mirror, 16mm, colour, 68min,
Premiere London Film Festival 9 October 2016
Funded by the Arts Council of England, Financial Assistance University of Westminster, LUX Distribution.

Amidst a visual extravaganza of costumes and hand-made sets, Sarah Pucill’s new film Confessions To The Mirror takes its title, from the French Surrealist artist, Claude Cahun’s (1894-1954) incomplete memoir (Confidences au miroir, 1945-1954).  Following Cahun’s text, the film includes Cahun’s early and later life and work including her political propaganda activity and imprisonment in Jersey with her partner Suzanne Malherbe during the Nazi occupation of the island. The tracing of a life is made conscious through the projection of images of the couples home in Jersey into a domestic London setting.

As a sequel to Pucill’s previous film, Magic Mirror (16mm, b/w, 75min, 2013), Confessions To The Mirror (16m, col, 68min) continues Pucill’s experiment to bring cinematic life to the photographic and written archive of Claude Cahun.  In her new film Pucill animates re-stagings of Cahun’s black and white self-portrait and still–life photographs with voices from Cahun’s  text Confidences au miror, thus collaging and transposing Cahun’s black and white stills and words, into colour and soundscape.

Texts on Magic Mirror (2013)

Direction, Camera and Edit:
Sarah Pucill
Editing Consultant and Sound Design:
Mairead McClean
Lighting & Second Camera:
Fiona Teo Rui Wen, Joel Honeywell, Rina Yang
Key Performers:
Karen Leroy-Harris, Kate Hart
Sound Mix & Online Edit:
Konrad Welz
Image Correction:
Fraser Watson
Costume:
Jessica Cheetham
Make-Up:
Jessica Cheetham, Katie Campbell
Voice:
Caroline Saint-Pe, Louise Larchbourne, Lucy Briggs-Owen

Francesca Rusalen + Francesco Cazzin, No Fest Experimental Film Festival Text 2017

“Feminisms, Mirrors: Claude Cahun and Sarah Pucill – a dialogue”, by Dr M Sprio, MIRAJ Magazine, Issue 4, 2+1, Spring  2016. Text 1 | Text 2 | Text

BFI FIlm Festival Salon Interview Sarah Pucill on Confessions To The Mirror with Ruth Maclennan on Hero City October 2016.

Roundtable Discussion: The Women of the London Filmmaker’s Co-op, Moving Image Review and Art Journal, Volume 4, No 1 + 2, 2015: 3P1-Roundtable-MIRAJ | P2-Roundtable-MIRAJ | P3-Roundtable-MIRAJ | P4-RoundtableMIRAJ | P5-RoundtableMIRAJ | P6-RoundtableMIraj | P7-RoundtableMIRAJ

“A Dialogue with Claude Cahun: Between Writing, Photography and Film in Magic Mirror and Confessions to the Mirror” Chapter by Sarah Pucill  in forthcoming book Cinematic Intermedialities, published by Edinburgh University Press, Ed Marion Schmid and Kim Knowles.  February 2021.   (Film Still on Cover).

“Coming to Life and Intermediality in the tableaux vivants in  Magic Mirror  and Confessions To The Mirror “ by Sarah Pucill.  In Experimental Film and Artists’ Moving Image Series: Experimental and Expanded Animation, Editors, Nicky Hamlyn, Vicky Smith, Palgrave Macmillan, September 2018.

“Mirror Tricks: Magic Objects”, Maxa Zoller, Leaflet with LUX Blu Ray Publication, 2021.

“Doubling Images: Troubling Objects”, Laura Guy, Leaflet with LUX Blu Ray Publication, 2021.

Reflections on the exhibition ‘Facing Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore’ at Ottawa Art Gallery 2019, by Michelle Gewurtz the curator.

September 2021.   ‘Into the Mothlight’  Podcast

“Into the Mothlight” Podcast. Interview with and produced by Jason Moyes.

on my 16mm films over 3 decades, in light of the the recent publication of the LUX Blu Ray of Confessions to the Mirror.       52mins. Published September 2021

 

Televised documentary in France (ARTE) and Germany (ZDF) “Masquerade and Games – The Female Artists of Surrealism”, Dir Maria Tappeiner.    Televised date: France and Germany 16 February 2020.  By the German public broadcaster ZDF in cooperation with the French/German public broadcaster ARTE.  Directed by Maria Tappeiner.

Extracts from Magic Mirror and Confessions to the Mirror  appear alongside an interview with me in my studio.    The focus is on my work with Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore in Magic Mirror  and Confessions to the Mirror.   Documentary includes  Lee Miller, Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington,  and Meret Oppenheim.

 

Blu Ray publication of Confessions to the Mirror publication by LUX – Launch Screening Event Chaired by LUX:  19 APRIL    6PM UK TIME

Short Introduction from Laura Guy, Maxa Zoller and Sarah Pucill.   Screening followed by Q+A + Discussion with Maxa Zoller and Laura Guy and Sarah Pucill

 

 

 

Clips from Magic Mirror and Confessions to the Mirror will be shown in the play The Invisible Adventure (2020), (Cahun’s  text (1930) , written and directed by Marcus Lindeen.  The play is based on three living people whose life or work; a brain scientist, an artist and a patient, draws upon contemporary debates around identity.   “The Artist” in the play is based on interviews with Sarah Pucill ,  “The Scientist”, with the brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor,  and “The Patient”, with Jérōme Hamon.

After Paris (10-14 October) the production will play at:

Comedie de Caen, Normandie : 3-6 November 2020.

Theatre de Gennevilliers, Paris: 10-14 October  2020, then at Comedie de Caen, Normandie : 3-6 November 2020.

London Film Festival, Official Selection October 2016
Close Up Cinema, Q+A Laura Guy, London, February 2017
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Official Selection, March 2017
Creteil International Women’s Film Festival, Paris, Official Selection, March 2017
National Portrait Gallery, London, Q+A Sadie Lee, March 2017
Cinematek Oslo, ‘The Dream That Kicks’, Q+A Greg Pope, 11 June 2017
White Cube,  Bermondsey as part of the exhibition ‘Dreamer’s Awake’, 6 August 2017

Photofilm: Sampling the Archive, organised by Katja Pratschke and Thomas Tode[
GUGA (Center of Architecture, a venue that is in opposition to the hungarian government), in co-operation with the Metropolitcan University, Budapest, Hungary.  Part of:  Verzio, Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Budapest, Hungary.

BEEF Bristol Experimental and Expanded Film, Brunswick Club, Q+A VIcky Smith, Bristol ,20 Feb 2018.

Bagdam Lesbian Cultural Festival, Toulouse, France.

UCL Art MuseumBloomsbury Studio,  Presented with Maria Walsh, London,  22 May 2018.

International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund, Official Selection, 12 April 2019.

 

Ottawa Municipal Art Gallery, “Facing Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore”, Installation with props and costumes from the film and 10 minute clip, curated by Michelle Gewurtz, 7 September 2019 – 10 February 2020

Clips from Magic Mirror and Confessions to the Mirror will be shown in the play The Invisible Adventure (2020), (Cahun’s  text (1930) , written and directed by Marcus Lindeen.

The play is based on three living people whose life or work; a neuro-scientist, an artist and a patient, draws upon contemporary debates around identity.   “The Artist” in the play is based on interviews with Sarah Pucill ,  “The Scientist”, with the brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor,  and “The Patient”, with Jérōme Hamon.

After Paris (10-14 October) the production will play at:

Comedie de Caen, Normandie : 3-6 November 2020.

75 Years Commemoration of the Liberation of Jersey, Jersey Heritage Trust, Screening and Presentation planned 16 May 2020.   Event was cancelled due to Covid19.

Ottawa Art Gallery Screening Presented by Curator Michelle Gewurtz Q+A with filmmaker present, 28 November 2019.

Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen, Holland.  Staged as an exhibition in “Under The Skin” curated by Julia Steenhuiseen. 15 October 2020 – 17 January 2021.

LUX LAUNCH OF BLU RAY DVD.  Screening + Talk with Sarah Pucill, Laura Guy and Maxa Zoller.  19 April 2021.

Mal Seh’n Kino, Frankfurt , Screening organised by Korola Gramann in relation to the Women Surrealist exhibition at Schirn Kunsthalle planned 19 April 2020, is postponed until May 2021.

Kunsthal, Rotterdam, the exhibition ‘Under the Skin’, curated by Julia Steenhuisen 2020 (largely closed due to COVID) tours to Kunsthal, Rotterdam, 21 May – 28 August.  Magic Mirror is staged in a separate seated dark space.

Toronto Women Film Festival,  February 2022.