Session sixty-seven, Illegal_Cinema

The Garden [Derek Jarman, 1990, 1h 28min] Screening proposed by Komisario Berriak, followed by discussion. 

The Garden is Jarman’s personal interpretation of the passion of Christ. Two lovers are humiliated, arrested and tortured in a non-linear collage that expresses the director’s deepest, most personal concerns: religious dogma, individual beliefs, and spiritual journeys. The film was made in Jarman’s house in Dungeness, Kent, close to a nuclear power plant. Jarman built his house and “Prospect Cottage”, a garden where he built his own set as a way of fighting the adversity of his context. This was his refuge until AIDS took his life in 1994.

Derek Jarman, a reference for experimental film, was also a stage designer, visual artist, writer, poet, designer and gay rights activist. Landscape artist Eunate Torres-Modrego, from Atelier de paisaje, will also attend the screening to give us her perspective on Prospect Cottage.

This film, and the film to be screened on 10 January, are intended as two possible entrances into the garden from two different perspectives. The proposal is linked to the exhibition “…al menos un modo provisional de asentarse en un lugar” by Komisario Berriak, which will run from 14 December to 22 January 2017 at Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, and from 20 January to 26 February 2017 at Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria.