A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
“A beautifully shot and moving elegy.”
Paul Hobson, Director Modern Art Oxford.
Marginalia | song to the river is a film that explores the river and its wildlife in a time of increasing land pressure and climate change.
Through poetry, song and statement this film asks us who we are and how we fit into the dynamic of our surroundings and nature.
The film features the commissioned poem Isis written by Penny Boxall with additional contributions from Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente, Jonathan Westaway and Lukas Krone. They discuss the environments lost to climate change, the river as a breathing, moving super organism and the deep sense of obligation astronauts have about conservation on returning to earth.
The music for the film was composed by Alex Smalley and Alex Lucas with the choral elements sung by the Choir of Merton College, Oxford.
Marginalia | song to the river was filmed as part of Merton College's Creative Arts Fellowship between October 2023 and August 2024 along a section of the Thames upstream from Oxford with additional elements filmed at Merton College, Oxford.
Marginalia | song to the river has screened at:
2025 Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival, Toronto.
PhotoMonth Photography Festival, London.
Presteigne Festival | Gŵyl Llanandras, Welsh Marches.
Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London.
Right Here Right Now 2025 Global Climate Summit, Oxford.
BOOK: A hard back book of the film has also been published. With over 80 pages of colour stills, some full spread, the book journeys you chronologically through the film. The book also includes the full transcriptions of the film’s contributors.
BLOG: The blog was written as an ongoing commentary on the making of Marginalia | song to the river and mapped the various stages of production. It drew parallels between the process of making Marginalia | song the river, the current film industry and film history.
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Made with funding from an Arts Council of Wales Creative Wales Award.
Informed by the everyday labours of working farm life, Fleece Painting is a film about the work of the artist Paul Emmanuel whose painting practice is embedded in the hills of the Brecon Beacons National Park in South Wales. The film features the artist Richard Higlett in conversation with Paul.
Inspired by local farmer’s use of coloured sheep marker Paul Emmanuel’s paintings use sheared fleece, sourced from local upland flocks.
He then applies paint directly to the fleece.
Filmed in the Brecon Beacons, south Wales.
Music by Olan Mill.
“Making a film about an artist is always challenging; communicating the soul and visceral impact of three dimensional work is a difficult act. In Fleece Painting Bevis Bowden has got straight to the heart of Paul Emmanuel’s inspiration and the articulation of his materials. In a thoroughly grounded film he totally nails the artist and his art.
On exhibition the film was an integral part of the gallery experience. Our audience enjoyed it immensely.”
Philip Hughes MBE, Director, Ruthin Craft Centre
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Commissioned by the Barbican and The Space as part of Digital Revolution.
Two fearless innovators, musical pioneer John Cale, the founding member of The Velvet Underground and technology storyteller Liam Young, transformed the Barbican’s Theatre with a brand new audio-visual collaboration.
In a film by Bevis Bowden, meet the creators of this innovative new work and learn more about the making of the drone orchestra.
"This is a beautiful piece of work. It's full of craft and visual beauty, and exudes a real sensitivity to the project. John and Liam's dynamic and the words they say are very strong; I particularly like the interview 2-shot, but also the moments where Bevis is in the pit and has Liam framed in the foreground and John on the stage behind. You get a real sense of their partnership. The film feels like (because it is) a compelling piece of art in its own right and the photography is just first-rate. So many rich, meaningful vignettes. I could write rather a long email singling out many, many wonderful touches, but that would take rather a while!”
Sidd Khajuria, Senior Producer at the Barbican.
Article | John Cale: a Futurespective
Other films made with John Cale: Dyddiau Du / Dark Days
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Selected for the Hinterlands Film Festival.
In May 2021, Daniel Bye and Boff Whalley set off from Northam Burrows, on Devon's north coast.
They aimed to run 120 miles to the south coast, finishing in Dartmouth.
They stopped along the way in fields, farm yards, chapels, barns and orchards, to perform their show These Hills Are Ours.
This is the story of what they found - about the relationship between wild and controlled, about land ownership and about how far we are prepared to go for what we believe in.
The Wild Tour was a celebration of everything we'd all been unable to do over the past year: perform live, sing together, and run in places too wild to be accessible from our front doors.
It's a comeback tour with a difference.
“The Wild Tour may at face value seem to be a film about the rewards of fell running and the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other to cover ground - but just as the two main runners in it encounter many landscapes along the way, so too the audience is led into numerous different territories. It soon becomes clear that we are being drawn into a moving meditation on political engagement, human encounter and, ultimately, the enduring power of friendship. There is certainly real rural beauty presented with great care here, though the weather cuts vicious as often as it shines fair, and there is a bite to the film that lingers long after the final destination is reached.”
Geoff A Bird, Radio Producer | Writer | Artistic Director
The music from The Wild Tour is available to buy on a 48 page booklet and 8-song CD from No Masters Records.
Other films made with Daniel Bye include: As if our lives depended on it | Learning to Fly (Again) | A song for Clougha Pike | A song for Roseberry Topping
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Written and Performed by Daniel Bye
Produced by ARC, Stockton Arts Centre.
In this meditation on illness and recovery, writer Daniel Bye returns to run on a favourite hill after a long period sidelined by chronic illness.
Music by Chequerboard
“Some of the most beautiful winter landscapes I’ve seen. The use of repetition, his poetic and simplistic notion of gravity and the palindromic structure just feels super smart.”
Gavin Bowden, Award Winning Commercials and Music Video Director
Other films made with Daniel Bye: As if our lives depended on it | The Wild Tour | A song for Clougha Pike | A song for Roseberry Topping
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Conceived by Daniel Bye
Produced by ARC, Stockton Arts Centre.
A group of fell runners play out a thrilling game that brings centuries-old manhunting adventures into the climate crisis era.
“One of the difficulties is we haven’t set goals of how everyone can get through this time of massive ecological collapse… Instead we’ve created this kind of artificial race… I think it’s interesting to just reflect on those overall goals and think about what we could achieve if we actually just framed the whole narrative a bit differently.”
Connie Hurton, Fell Runner and Competitor
Music by Nick Franglen
Other films made with Daniel Bye: Learning to Fly (Again) | The Wild Tour | A song for Clougha Pike | A song for Roseberry Topping
Listen to Daniel Bye by on Gary Thwaites Tea & Trails podcast talk about the film at 1 hour 31 minutes 35 seconds.
A FILM SERIES BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Winner of the Digital category at the New England Book Show.
Commissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
Here are three of nine films embedded in the enhanced ebook Ori Gersht: History Reflecting. Each individual film discusses different elements of Ori Gersht's work and his studio practice.
The ebook expounds themes presented in the show History Repeating.
The eBook is available for download from Apple Books.
Other films made with Ori Gersht: Offering | Evaders | The Forest
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Commissioned by Turner Contemporary, Margate.
Two channel synchronised installation
excerpt
Unlike his contemporary Richard Long, Hamish Fulton leaves no formal mark or intervention on the land through which he travels.
"As far as I know, Fulton has never made a film before (too full, too revealing). But now he is showing the people of Margate walking round one of the famous boating pools on the beach. Slow, silent and equidistant, each figure files round the edge: a line, a stitch, a tooth in a comb. The effect is extraordinarily potent."
Article | review by Laura Cumming, The Guardian
Margate Walking formed part of Walking In Relation To Everything at Galerie Tschudi, Switzerland 2020.
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Produced by ARC, Stockton Arts Centre.
These Hills Are Ours: Roseberry Topping and Clougha Pike were made in collaboration with the writer and performer Daniel Bye, who wrote:
"With my friend and colleague Boff Whalley, earlier this year I led two separate projects in which a choir walked from the centre of a city, to the top of the peak overlooking that city. Along the way we sang an original song about the relationship between that place and its peak.
The rights-of-way routes were chosen to maximise the sense of collective ownership over the terrain. Almost every foot fell in the steps of a whole history of struggles for ownership, use, and access. Bevis made short films of both journeys.”
Daniel Bye.
“I have to say, watching them, without sounding too much like a film critic the cinematography is just beautiful. I was struck even by some of the what you might call dilapidated areas – the old railings and stuff, I actually thought that was actually beautiful. I don't know how you managed to do it, but every single shot in it seems beautiful.
Steve Royal, BBC Radio Lancashire
Article | Review in Lancaster District
Other films made with Daniel Bye: Learning to Fly (Again) | The Wild Tour
The second film, A Song for Clougha Pike, documents a journey from the sea’s edge at Morecambe, to the summit of Clougha Pike.
The first film, A Song for Roseberry Topping, documents a journey from Stockton-on-Tees to the summit of Roseberry Topping.
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Conceived by John Cale
Dyddiau Du/Dark Days represented Wales at the 53rd Venice Biennale.
Commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales.
John Cale is the founding member of The Velvet Underground.
Five channel synchronised installation
Dyddiau Du/Dark Days is a reflection of Cale's personal relationship with Wales, the Welsh language and wider issue of communication, and the uniqueness of the bardic tradition of his home nation.
"The images in Dark Days are lucid and exact. In effect, Cale has created a filmed concept album and called it an artwork. It is utterly compelling, deeply felt. Cale has created a magnificent allegory of migration and loss, a poem of memory and distance".
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
Article | review by Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
Dyddiau Du / Dark Days has since screened at the inaugural MONA FOMA Festival, Hobart; National Museum, Cardiff; National Waterfront Museum, Swansea; National Slate Museum, Llanberis; Theatre der Welt, Essen (live music performance); Het Huis, Middelheim Museum, Antwerp.
Other films made with John Cale: LOOP>>60Hz: Transmissions from The Drone Orchestra
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Conceived by Simon Pope
The Halstow Wassail recently screened at Cecil Sharp House, London.
The Halstow Wassail takes place each year on a Devon cider farm that has been in the Gray family since the late 1600s.
Featuring the singer- songwriter Jim Causley, Dartmoor folk singer Bill Murray, and the shanty crew Mariners Away the film in a single uninterrupted camera shot documents this traditional event.
Unlike other wassails, The Halstow Wassail is a celebration of the microbial life of cider-making, with each verse acknowledging the importance of the yeasts and other fungi, bacteria and moulds, that live on the orchards and apples, in the barns, press and barrels, and in the cider itself.
The Halstow Wassail is one of several artistic experiments with local folkways associated with cider-making made by the artist Simon Pope in collaboration with singer-songwriter Jim Causley.
Further information about the project can be found on the Here’s to Thee website.
Article | BBC Radio 4 Front Row interview with Simon Pope and Jim Causley
Other films made with Simon Pope: Primary Agents Of A Social World | What Cannot Be Turned Aside | Memory Marathon
A FILM BY BEVIS BOWDEN
Conceived by Nick Franglen
HYMN TO LONDON BRIDGE
Commissioned by The Mayor's Thames Festival.
"I am going to be playing a theremin under London Bridge for 24 hours in a slowly developing collaboration with thousands of pedestrians who will unwittingly cut a hidden beam on the bridge that will momentarily mute the music I'm making".
Article | A man, a theremin and a horde of London Bridge commuters
HYMN TO THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE
Commissioned by the Make Music New York Festival.
Cyclists crossing the bridge became the unwitting producers of silence, momentarily muting the music being performed below.
“The photography is a hymn to the bridge in its own right. Highly recommended.”
New York Times
3RD STREET BLACKOUT, a feature directed by Negin Farsad and Jeremy Redleaf, used footage from Hymn to the Manhattan Bridge to create story telling interludes throughout their film.
