John Smith Movies

‘Covid Messages’ is a video in six parts, based around broadcasts of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s COVID-19 press conferences. The...

Genre: Documentary

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At Stamford Road in Dalston Junction of east London, the camera follows pedestrians, cars and birds while a narrator, who appears to be the director...

Genre: Drama

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16mm experimental film of a desk fan.

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“If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Matthew 5:38-40

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Rapid cutting between identically framed portrait photographs creates composite faces and various illusions of movement. The film features...

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A larger than life tribute to Prince Philip, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, recorded in 2002 and completed on the day of his death, April...

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‘Dungeness’ was originally made for ‘Dungeness: The Desert in the Garden’, a multi-media theatre production directed by...

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In the mid 1970s the EMI company were preparing to market the newly developed video disc. Being uncertain as to what content would be appropriate,...

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On the 23rd of June 2016 Britain voted to leave the European Union. Who Are We? is a re-working of material from a BBC television debate transmitted...

Genre: Documentary

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A reworking of material from the 16mm film ‘Blue Bathroom’, a distillation of ideas concerning the tension between representation and...

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Waiting by the sea with his camera ready for action, the artist complains about the weather and attempts to describe his intentions and working...

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Home Suite, Smith’s first video work, is a close-up journey through a domestic landscape and a journey through memory, containing only three...

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Cast: John Smith

THE CAMERA, THE ACTOR was commissioned by musician Charles Hayward to accompany the song of the same name on his album entitled (Begin Anywhere).

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John Smith’s Leading Light evolves a sense of screen depth and surface through the simple agency of light. The film is shot in a room over a...

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From the idea that glass, even when cooled, is a liquid that changes in appearance over time, an offscreen narrator launches a recollection of the...

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Cast: Ian Bourn

A short film featuring the voices of those affected when the M11 Link Road in East London was built, accompanied by scenes and sounds of demolition.

Genre: Documentary

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Reflecting on past political problems and the state of the world as it was provides no tools or means for envisioning the future.

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The discovery of a VHS tape of the artist's films on eBay triggers obsessive speculation about the seller's identity.

Genre: Documentary

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A film about haircuts, clothes and image/sound relationships. - J.S.

Genre: Comedy

Cast: Mark Stevens

A view across the border in Nicosia, the divided capital of Cyprus. The camera looks over the rooftops of the Greek Cypriot south to the mountains of...

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Dad’s Stick features three well-used objects that were shown to the artist by his father shortly before he died. Two of these were so steeped...

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“London artist John Smith uses light-hearted humour to explore theoretical concerns - Gargantuan, for instance, is both pleasantly silly and...

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'Associations' sets language against itself by using the ambiguities inherent in the English language. Images from magazines and color supplements...

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A man finds himself haunted by a mysterious black tower in London that appears to follow him wherever he goes.

Genre: Horror

Cast: John Smith

This critically acclaimed DVD contains 16 of the best classic and award winning British short films and delivers a snapshot of British cinema past...

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Cast: Stephen Daldry

A disorientating experience while attempting to watch the TV news in an Irish hotel room triggers a spontaneous response to the bombing of...

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While the Iraq war continues, a day’s sightseeing and the features of a German hotel provoke a stream of thoughts about events large and small.

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The perception of an Anglo-American hotel room is coloured by new revelations about ‘The War on Terror’ and ‘The Special...

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The filmmaker returns to the city where he made the first video in the series [Frozen War] and looks back at the events of the past six years.

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As the camera looks out through a barred window and the clock strikes four in a Swiss city, the death of Yasser Arafat provides the starting point...

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Moving from one hotel in Bethlehem to another in East Jerusalem, the filmmaker encounters a series of problems involving a ceiling, a video camera...

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Hamas have just won the Palestinian elections and a chocolate bar in a Rotterdam hotel room eventually reminds the filmmaker that there are more...

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Filmed in and around Margate on the English coast, Horizon (Five Pounds a Belgian) consists of a series of identically composed images of views out...

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Lost Sound documents fragments of discarded audio tape found on the streets of a small area of East London, combining the sound retrieved from each...

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A personal interpretation of the poetry and letters of T S Eliot which explores the ambiguities of language and space in a scenario built around an...

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A film by John Smith and Ian Bourn

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An exploration of the ambiguities of documentary photographs which develops ideas triggered by a German pun. Worst Case Scenario starts out as a...

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Many of my films involve humour, but unlike the earlier work Shepherd’s Delight attempts to confront the problem of humour head-on, referring...

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Recorded from a smartphone screen, its translation app running on the wrong settings and struggling to interpret North London street signs in French...

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A portrait of the artist as a not so young man. The film-maker attempts to enter the digital age by making a new video version of his 1978 film 7P.

Genre: Music

Cast: John Smith

Blue Bathroom is a distillation of ideas concerning the tension between representation and materiality. It begins with an apparently straightforward...

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An improvisation recorded over the course of one day, starting at dawn and finishing after dusk. The film was edited in camera and shot from one...

Genre: Documentary

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Artist John Smith tells stories about tower block life, editing in bold, unconventional fashion, cutting into the material and highlighting the...

Genre: TV Movie

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On December 1st 1990, watched by the world’s media, construction worker Graham Fagg of Dover climbed through a hole in a chalk wall 40 metres...

Genre: Documentary

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On December 1st 1990, watched by the world’s media, construction worker Graham Fagg of Dover climbed through a hole in a chalk wall 40 metres...

Genre: Documentary

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On December 1st 1990, watched by the world’s media, construction worker Graham Fagg of Dover climbed through a hole in a chalk wall 40 metres...

Genre: Documentary

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On December 1st 1990, watched by the world’s media, construction worker Graham Fagg of Dover climbed through a hole in a chalk wall 40 metres...

Genre: Documentary

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On December 1st 1990, watched by the world’s media, construction worker Graham Fagg of Dover climbed through a hole in a chalk wall 40 metres...

Genre: Documentary

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The only time I’ve visited a communist country was when I went to Poland in 1980, not long after Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative...

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Directed by John Smith

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Being John Smith is a deceptively wry and deeply felt work by the English avant-garde legend, in which Smith reflects on his life and career by way...

Genre: Documentary

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A biblical interpretation of airline safety instructions.

Genre: Comedy

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Filmmaker John Smith revisits the original locations of his seminal experimental film The Girl Chewing Gum (1976) after 35 years, using...

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A biblical interpretation of airline safety instructions.

Genre: Comedy

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A biblical interpretation of airline safety instructions.

Genre: Comedy

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A biblical interpretation of airline safety instructions.

Genre: Comedy

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A biblical interpretation of airline safety instructions.

Genre: Comedy

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Abstract animation punctuated by found footage, cut to the song White Light / White Heat by The Velvet Underground.

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Super 8 footage of a moving figure (Lis Rhodes), broken down into still frames and reanimated in superimposed layers. Soundtrack by Peter Cusack.

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'Shine So Hard' is a rare Echo and the Bunnymen promotional concert film, taking place during their 1981 'Camo Tour'.

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Filmed from the artist’s window during the first English lockdown, ‘Citadel’ combines short fragments from British Prime Minister...

Genre: Documentary

Cast: Boris Johnson

Filmed from the artist’s window during the first English lockdown, ‘Citadel’ combines short fragments from British Prime Minister...

Genre: Documentary

Cast: Boris Johnson

Filmed from the artist’s window during the first English lockdown, ‘Citadel’ combines short fragments from British Prime Minister...

Genre: Documentary

Cast: Boris Johnson

Filmed from the artist’s window during the first English lockdown, ‘Citadel’ combines short fragments from British Prime Minister...

Genre: Documentary

Cast: Boris Johnson

John Smith stands in front of a mirror, singing “Happy Birthday” in a minor key, like a funeral dirge, twice, as he washes his hands.

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Filmed from the artist’s window during the first English lockdown, ‘Citadel’ combines short fragments from British Prime Minister...

Genre: Documentary

Cast: Boris Johnson

A man finds himself haunted by a mysterious black tower in London that appears to follow him wherever he goes.

Genre: Horror

Cast: John Smith

Made over six years in the hotels of six different countries, Hotel Diaries charts the 'War on Terror' era of Bush and Blair through a seven-part...

Genre: Documentary

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