Bata-ville: We are not afraid of the future
2003 - 2005Project:
Feature film (93 mins) 'Bata-ville: We are not afraid of the future'; preceeded by the Bata-ville Travel Agency (an installation in the former Bata shoe factory at East Tilbury) and a free coach holiday to Zlin
Date: Travel Agency: 21/11/03 - 13/12/03 Coach Trip: 12/09/04 - 19/09/04 Film launch: 20/03/05
Co-producers: Somewhere, Commissions East & Illumina Digital Ltd.
Commissioner: Thurrock Council's Arts Generate programme commissioned the Travel Agency
Bata-ville continues to screen at arts venues throughout the UK, and was selected to premiere at the prestigious 2005 Edinburgh International Film Festival.
"A strange, defiantly unclassifiable work from UK artists Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope - combining elements of travelogue, documentary and performance piece - Bata-ville takes one of the archetypical aspects of British life, the holiday coach trip, and overlays it with a number of social, cultural and historical preoccupations. Artistic collaborators for over a decade, Pope and Guthrie lead their tour group with a kindly sort of efficiency. There's something endearing about the pair, so groomed and unflappable in their retro-chic outfits - a goofy sense of fun that prevents them from seeming pretentious or merely arch. As filmmakers, too, they demonstrate a serene confidence, an easy familiarity with the medium. Charming is a problematic word, usually invoked to damn with faint praise, yet it seems entirely appropriate here: this is a charming, yet quietly provocative film."
Excerpt from EIFF director Shane Danielson's review
See press coverage of the film here in the Guardian and also in the Telegraph here.
Bata-ville is a Somewhere project by Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie, developed by Commissions East. The film was co-produced by Somewhere, Commissions East and Illumina Digital Ltd. Bata-ville has been supported by funding from Allerdale Borough Council, Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the European Cultural Foundation, Screen East (through RIFE Lottery) and Thurrock Council, with an in kind contribution from the Czech Centre (London).
