Slow Action
Ben Rivers | GB 2010 | 45 min. 
Material: 16mm
Format: 16mm
Original language: English
Script: Ben Rivers
Camera: Ben Rivers
Editing: Ben Rivers
Texts: Mark von Schlegell
Production: Lux
Print/Sales: Lux
Post-apocalyptic science fiction film that brings together a series of four 16mm works which exist somewhere between documentary, ethnographic study and fiction.
Continuing his exploration of curious and extraordinary environments, "Slow Action" applies the idea of island biogeography – the study of how species and eco-systems evolve differently when isolated and surrounded by unsuitable habitat – to a conception of the Earth in a few hundred years; the sea level rising to absurd heights, creating hyperbolic utopias that appear as possible future mini-societies.
Slow Action is filmed at different sites across the globe: Lanzarote – a beautiful strange island known for its beach resorts yet one of the driest places on the planet, full of dead volcanoes and strange architecture; Gunkanjima – an island off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan, a deserted city built on a rock, once home to thousands of families mining its rich coal reserves; Tuvalu – one of the smallest countries in the world, with tiny strips of land barely above sea level in the middle of the Pacific; and Somerset – an as yet to be discovered island and its various clades. – Ben Rivers
Ben Rivers, born in 1972 in Somerset. From 1990 to 1993, Ben Rivers studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art. He co-founded and programmed Brighton Cinematheque from 1996 to 2006. He has exhibited at many international film festivals and galleries, and won numerous awards. Together with US artist filmmaker Ben Russell, he toured New Zealand/Australia in July/August 2008 with a two-person show We Can Not Exist In This World Alone. Ben Rivers lives and works in London.
Films (selection): This Is My Land 2006 | Ah, Liberty! (UNDERDOX 06) 2008 | A World Rattled of Habit 2009 | I Know Where I'm Going (UNDERDOX 06) 2009 | Slow Action 2010