AiM After Hours Double Bill
The second in our series of late-night screenings is conveniently
coinciding with Halloween. To celebrate in style, audience members who
turn up in appropriate garb will get £1.50 off their ticket price!
The White Darkness
Screened with Highway to the Grave on Fri 31 Oct at 10.30pm
Richard Stanley | UK 2002 | 52m | BetaSP | English | 18 | Documentary
In the year 2000, Richard Stanley was commissioned by the BBC to film
a Haitian segment for their Benedict Allen-hosted documentary series
Last of the Medicine Men, focusing on Voodoo practices. Wandering
around the countryside and recording their observations, the crew
witnessed at first hand that Voodoo, usually coined re-animating the
dead, is mostly about interacting with and being possessed by
otherworldly spirits; a tradition which has lived through the
occupation and missionary eras and has just recently been acknowledged
as a certified religion.
Stanley kept a diary of his trip which was
published in The Fortean Times. What fascinated him were the many
faces of Haiti which is a US military outpost on the one hand and a cradle
of magic in the modern world on the other.
After the BBC documentary was aired,
Stanley was given
access to 200 hours of footage from the journey and from this he
created The White Darkness - his own unique take on the political and
religious boilings of Haiti. Like the filmmaker Maya Deren before him,
he was also initiated into the priesthood of Haitian magical mysteries.
The AiM After Hours double bill will be introduced by South African writer,
critic, director and actor Trevor Steele Taylor.