Fall In Frame, 2009

2009, 16mm, col, 18min

Fall in Frame opens with the image of a young woman looking at herself and her camera in the mirror, each revealed as she unwraps a sheet to uncover the lens. She sets up the filming space by staging both set and camera and manipulates the light by handling the blind, each action weighted with its sound.  Filming herself falling asleep and awakening, in and out of consciousness, the woman switches the camera on and off. Deliberation and indifference at once determine her actions as she sits at the table pouring tea, impassively combs strands of long hair or lounges on a bed. Meticulously constructing her own confinement, she repeatedly checks herself in mirror and camera, all the while moving in and out of frame. With an even paced performance the woman proceeds to stitch her apron to the tablecloth with her hair. As she stands, the crockery comes crashing down. Gathered together into her dress, the debris is then thrown out of the window. Outside, in the garden, objects and camera are piled onto the cloth that becomes a trail as it is attached to her dress. From suburban street to sea-shore, camera and trail follow her.  In Fall in Frame the materiality of the filmmaking process is explored within a constrained performance that blurs the split  between the physical and consciousness.  The film ends where it starts with the sheet around the camera, shutting out the image.

Fall in Frame is a single screen which can be looped for gallery staging to be shown on 16mm or DVD

Directed and Produced: Sarah Pucill
Funded: Arts Council of England
Camera, Text and Edit: Sarah Pucill
Performance: Lucy Pratt
Sound, Mix and Dub: Konrad Welz

2009
Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal (festival)
University of Bedfordshire, Luton (Symposium)
Echo Park Film Centre, Los Angeles (retrospective)
MassArt Film Society, Boston (retrospective)
Anthology Film Archives, New York (retrospective)
Air Gallery, New York (retrospective)
Pleasure Dome, Toronto (retrospective)
2010
The Freud Museum, London (retrospective)
2010
The Book Club, curated by Laura Kloss, programme text by Adriana Cerne, Shoreditch, London (retrospective)
2010
No.w.here, Bethnal Green London (retrospective)
2012
Imagem-Contato, San Paulo, Brazil
2010
The Freud Museum, London (retrospective)
2014
A Nos Amours, JW3, London, as part of a ‘Chantale Akerman study day’, Screening of Fall In Frame with a presentation discussing the connection with Akerman’s filmmaking.
2017
City46, KomunalKino, Bremen, Germany

2023 Braquage, Paris.