On the 27th of February, 7 pm, festival Mondo Bizarro and Kaunas Artists‘ House invites you to screening of “Stand by for Tape Back-up“ (dir. Ross Sutherland, 2015).
“Stand by for Tape Back-up“‘s epicentre is VHS videocassette Sutherland and his grandfather packed with sit-coms, movies, and other material they recorded back in the 1980s.
They had no idea how to start a new recording after the previous one ended, so the tape is a mix of “The Wizard of Oz“, “Ghostbusters“, “Jaws“, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller“, and so on, overcoating with stuttering black and white video noise and other abstractions.
As scattered images play on the screen, Sutherland speaks a nonstop monologue that is urgent, querulous, and at times exhilaratingly rhythmic. We hear the voice of a man trying to excavate meaning from mystery and find salvation from illness, confusion, and loss– especially of his beloved grandfather. He talks prose, poetry and raps in sync to the images we are watching.
In the film, Sutherland says that the tape, which he has watched over 300 times, is his “way to commune with the unknown,” and it’s the only artefact of his past. He needs to put “the little bits together” to see his entire life story.
About the Director
Ross Sutherland is writer working across theatre, film and radio. He makes the experimental fiction podcast, Imaginary Advice. In 2018, the podcast won gold for Best Fiction at the British Podcast Awards. He wrote a five-part comic miniseries for Channel 4’s Random Acts, and a BBC Radio 4 documentary about British Wrestling. He also made a special for BBC2 called ‘Missing Episode’. In it, he remix an old episode of “EastEnders” in order to tell the story of a car-crash he had on the same night. The last work of his is a solo play “The Exocism“, “it’s a ghost story about the song Mambo Number Five“.
Attendance is free of charge.
Documentary, UK, 2015, English, 65 min.
MONDO BIZARRO is cinematic event organized by platform Kitas Kinas and dedicated to films, genres and subgenres which could fall to paracinema term. Paracinema is the mixture of high and low art, conjoining exploitation and academia, and breathing with energy, individuality and fun. Paracinema is the cinema of parties which embraces all forms of transgressive media culture.
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