SCIENCE IS FICTION: THE FILMS OF JEAN PAINLEVE
With live score from Rasha Shaheen and friends

(Sat 29th / 8:30pm/ £5)

Pioneering scientist, documentarist, self-declared anarchist and
scuba-auteur Jean Painleve (1902-1989) made a series of rapturous underwater films, exploring undersea and microscopic worlds filled with beauty,
horror, sadism, amorality, joy, and grace. Painleve's films defy
categorisation as either science or art with their humour, lyricism and uncommon beauty. They renew a sense of the mystery and miracle of nature, and remind us that the cinema was scientific before it was fiction. These films are ahead of their time and in urgent need of rediscovery.

Tonight a few of his submarine surrealist shorts will come alive once more as some of Bristol's finest musicians create their own
interpretations of a score. With appearances from:

Andrea Hernandez - Shrimp Stories
Joe Volk - How some Jellyfish are born (1960)
John Baggot - Liquid Crystals (1976)
Mark Henson - Hyas and Stenorhyncus
Martin Bailey - Love Life of an Octopus (1965)
Paula James - The SeaHorse (1934) (one of the first
underwater films and probably the first film to show a male giving
birth)
Rasha Shaheen - Sea Urchins (1954)
Stewart Jackson - Acera or the Witches Dance (1972)