2010, 16mm, b/w, 19min
Distinctive in its stark use of black and white and reminiscent of early silent cinema, this film is composed of a series of theatrical side-show ‘magic’ acts. Three women stage tricks of appearance and disappearance, punctuated by trumpet, cello and drums.Interchanging between the roles of magician, nude and filmmaker, they perform the preparation of an image and the prepared or completed image, drawing on iconic paintings. 16mm camera techniques as well as performance techniques with props – such as cloaks, drapery, curtains, wigs, mirrors, frames, wands and lighting – determine what is visible or absent in the film frame.With its surrealist sensibilities of artifice and reality and insistence on doubling and substitution, Phantom Rhapsody probes the notion of identity as surface that can be worn or shed and which can extend beyond the boundary of the skin, into the light in the room, the set and the props.
- Direction:
- Sarah Pucill
- Funded:
- Arts Council of England
- Camera Assistance:
- Lucy Pratt, Vicky Smith
- Camera, Text and Edit:
- Sarah Pucill
- Performance:
- Cecile Chich, Kayla Ente, Lucy Pratt, Sarah Pucill
- Sound Design:
- Tudor Petre Music
- Music Composition:
- Lennert Busch
- Trumpet:
- Howard Jacques Peryer
- Cello:
- Alice Biddulph
- 2010 Sainsbury Art Centre, Norwich, curated by Ben Cook LUX
- 2010 BFI Southbank, Launch of LUX DVD , February, (part of a retrospective of my films),
- 2011 “BFI Southbank, Maya Deren Season” target=”_blank”>BFI Southbank, Maya Deren Season, (part of a retrospective of my films), October, curated by Elinor Cleghorn
- 2011 Light Cone, Paris L’action Christine Cinema, (part of a retrospective of my films).
- 2011 Millennium Film, June, (part of a retrospective of my films, ) New York
- 2011 Leeds Independent Film Festival, October, curated by Cherry Kino
- 2011 Edinburgh International Film Festival, June, curated by Kim Knowles
- 2012 Schwarz Gallery, staged as an installation in a group show’Powerless Structures’ curated by Ismail Erbil
- 2012 Parasol Unit, curated by Gil Laung, LUX
- 2013 Experimental Film programme curated by Kim Knowles, Freiburg, Germany
- 2013 Tate Britain, Assembly: A Survey of Recent Artists Film and Video in Britain 2008-2013, ‘I Extend My Arms’ curated by George Clark, Stuart Comer and Melissa Blanchflower
- 2013 Arsenale Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin.
- 2018 BEEF, Bristol at Cube Microplex Cinema, Cuated by Vicky Smith. 20 Feb.
- 2019 Queensland Film Festival, Australia. Curated by John Edmund. 29 June.
- 2017 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, staged exhibition.
- 2023 “I’ll Be Your Mirror” Online exhibition, Curated by Beth Greenacre at Vortic Curated 18 April – 9 July.
- Sarah Pucill – A Historical Overview Of Her Films (1990-2010), LUX DVD Booklet, Arts Council Funded: Historical Overview P1 | Historical Overview P2
- Introduction for retrospective screening at The Book Club, London 2010, by Dr Adriana Cerne: Adriana P1 | Adriana P2 | Adriana P3
- 2011 ‘Phantom Rhapsody: Smoke, Mirrors and the Spell of Cinema’ by Lucy Reynolds for the Lux DVD Booklet
- 2010 The Theatre of female point of view by Gloria Morano, La Furia Umana
- 2010 Sarah Pucill in Conversation with Dr Margherita Sprio Sequence Magazine Issue 1 Summer 2010
- 2011 Video Interview with clips of my films on the influence of my films with Maya Deren, February