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Babeldom

Paul Bush

2012 00:09:00 United KingdomEnglishColorStereo16:9HD video
Tags:
Animation, Environment, Found Footage, Surveillance, City, State, The, Technology, Feature Length

Description

Babeldom is a city so massive and growing at such a speed that soon, it is said, light itself will not escape its gravitational pull. How can two lovers communicate, one from inside the city and one outside? This is an elegy to urban life, against the backdrop of a city of the future, a portrait assembled from film shot in modern cities all around the world and collected from the most recent research in science, technology and architecture.

"It’s a complex architectural vision equal parts awesome and terrifying… This is a film – and city – to get lost in."

— Isabel Stevens, Sight and Sound

"This extraordinary documentary is a kind of poetic treatise on the idea of a city. Bush has created an elegy about the life of a metropolis since its almost mythical beginnings."

— Martina Olszowska, Kino Magazine

"A fascinating meditation on the cities of the future… There is something of Iain Sinclair, J G Ballard and Italo Calvino here, and of the night time Paris in Godard’s Alphaville."

 — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

 

 

CREDITS

Youla Boudali and Mark Caven in an Ancient Mariner Production

Written, Produced and Directed by Paul Bush

Camera: Paul Bush

Editor: Lawrence Huck

Soundtrack composed by Andy Cowton

Choral Music composed by Stuart Earl

Sound recorded, edited and mixed by Zhe Wu

Online editing and colour grading by Juan Pablo Salazar and Roni Rodrigues

 

About Paul Bush

 

Paul Bush was born in London in 1956. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and began making films in 1978, after joining the London Filmmakers Co-op. From 1981 to 1993 he taught filmmaking, establishing a 16mm film workshop in South London and supervising a wide variety of courses and the production of numerous student films. Between 1995 and 2001 he taught on the visual arts course at Goldsmiths and recently he has lectured about his work at the Media Academy Cologne, St. Lukas Brussels, Hogeschool Ghent, CalArts in the U.S., and the RCA, the National Film School, and Duncan of Jordanstone in the U.K. Most of his films have been commissioned for broadcast, but he has also made films for arts organizations and the commercial sector.

Bush's Fine Arts background remains an influence on his work, which crosses the boundaries between fiction, documentary, and animation. His films have been shown in festivals, exhibitions, and on television all over the world. Forgetting (1990) won the gold plaque for short drama at Chicago Film Festival. His Comedy (1994) has been awarded prizes at Melbourne, Bombay, and Cinanima Festivals; The Rumour of True Things (1996) won at the Bonn Videonale; The Albatross (1998) at Zagreb, Hiroshima, Cinanima and Bombay; and Furniture Poetry (1999) at Transmediale, Berlin. He makes commercials for Picasso Pictures for clients including Panasonic and Philips, and he was recently ranked second on Creation's top 50 list of directors of animation.