EARLEY

John Russell

Earley

30.10 – 11.12.2021

19, rue de la Madeleine

13200 Arles

2 Screenings daily at 3pm and 5pm / 15h et 17h
Thursday – Saturday / jeudi – samedi

In the searing heat of rural France, in the summer 2021, a group of filmmakers set about making an updated version of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist post-war vision, choreographed across the platforms of a train station.

As a play on Beckett’s experiments with translation the narrative is set in the small town of Earley, in the UK, but actually filmed in Arles, South of France. To amplify this conceit all the signage on platforms and trains were changed from French to English.

During the course of their research the filmmakers were warned about the myth of Egghead or Tete d’Oeuf. The filmmakers chose to ignore these warnings and even incorporated reference to Egghead in the script.

Sweltering in the melting pollen, mosquitoes, coagulating ideology and dripping sweat, with the continuous background rhythm of cicada, an intense dialogue unfolds between two protagonist-commuters, one in the form of a Giacometti sculpture…