a.samms@live.co.uk
2022
It’s not perverse, it’s mothers (14mins), digital
Capturing the tender and messy moments, It’s Not Perverse, It’s Mothers (14 mins, 2022), is a chaotic portrait of mothers and daughters. The film comically, yet tenderly seeks clarity on a curious hair-dying ritual passed down through five generations of women in the director’s family. The ritual, seemingly unquestioned before the making of the film, shows the difficulties in attempting to recapture a familial story that can be too revealing or difficult to accept.
Selected Screenings:
❋ BFI Screening (UK Competition London Short Film Festival), 2023
❋ The Artist Forum - Festival of the Moving Image, New York
WINNER - ꩜ BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT ꩜, 2023
The film explores the same maternal ritual that informs my sculptural work.
Directed, written & edited by Anouska Samms
Producer - Anna FywellCinematography - Joshua Loftin, Kathryn MacCorgarry Gray, Anouska Samms
Art Director - Greg Bradlaugh
Art Assistants - Claire Esnault, Javie Huxley
Sound Recordist - Kathryn MacCorgarry GraySound Mix - Calum
SampleComposer - Fredrick Waxman
Colourist and Animator - Radu Rojas Oprean
2018
The Baths (12mins), digital
https://vimeo.com/547387966
Tucked away in the corner of an industrial estate in East London is a steam baths where people meet to wash, eat and chat. Visited daily by men from the East-End’s Black British, Eastern European, Jewish and white British communities, it’s where different bathing rituals provide points of exchange, as distinct practices inform one another. The baths is a space where collective memories are forged.
Made by two women filmmakers, The Baths (12mins, 2016) explores masculinity in a unique setting. Inspired by Laura Marks' ideas of haptic visuality, the film's haptic imagery creates a visceral experience for viewers, making them feel as though they are sat in the baths and experiencing the space's intense conditions. Whether disorientated through the use of Go-Pro in claustrophobic steam rooms, or the effects of the environment revealed on naked skin, viewers are sensorily engaged by the filmic image, conveying different knowledges through and by the site of the body.
Produced, directed & edited by Anouska Samms & Sofia Pancucci-McQueen
Director of Photography - Simon Plunket
Additional Photography - Joe Gainsborough
Sound Designer - Calum Sample
Sound Recordists - William Alexander, Phillip Barnes, Tom Beale, Kathryn MacCorgarry Gray, Andy Richmond
Colourist - Jessica Vile
Selected Screenings:
❋ WINNER - Best Documentary Short at The Artists Forum - Festival of the Moving Image, New York, 2017
❋ New Orleans Film Festival, 2017
❋ Mana Contemporary Chicago, 2017
❋ Aesthetica Short Film Festival, 2017
❋ Arctic Moving Image & Film Festival, 2017