Fever In The Light

Fever Of The Light

Filmmaker Rebecca E. Marshall has created a letter-in-film to her son in 2033 when he will turn eighteen. According to current predictions, this will be the time when humanity will be preparing for the first manned mission to Mars. Zelly Restorick asks Rebecca about her connection with Hastings, film and her inspiration for Fever Of The Light. 

I was born here in Hastings, third generation from the Old Town. I started the Electric Palace Cinema 15 years ago with Rachel Pearson. I did an MA in film at The London Film School in 2009 and am currently doing a PhD in film with Exeter University.

I love Hastings! Its getting even better all the time!

And I have always loved film – my favourite thing about running the cinema is sitting at the back and witnessing a mixed group of people all held spellbound by a story on the screen. It’s quite a peculiar thing really, all these strangers sharing this experience; it’s like a primitive thing in a way. Then it’s always interesting sensing the atmosphere when the film is finished – and all the reactions from everyone.

And what inspired you to make this film, Fever Of The Light?

Fascination with how fast time seems to go and what this means for people today. How we can appreciate and enjoy our lives. How I might talk to my new born son about these thoughts for the future

I understand there are three films inter-linking. What is their connection?

The triptych visually unfolds thoughts about the human perception of time and timelessness in a world that is changing rapidly through constant progress in technology and human communication. Three images simultaneously weave three parallel stories:

AGAFYA LYKOVA
The first story tells of Agafya Lykova, and of her life spent in isolation for the last 25 years in the heart of Siberia’s vast forest. Agafya was born in this forest when her parents escaped from Stalin’s regime to live as exiles, surviving from the wilderness, hundreds of miles away from the nearest town. Agafya did not meet another person outside her family until the age of thirty-eight and throughout her life she has left the forest only a few times. She has no photographs of her life; her existence is reflected only through her memories and the vast landscape that surrounds her.

THE CHILD
The second story follows the first months in the life of my son, mixed with my memories and vignettes of everyday life over the past decades. It is a mosaic of landscapes, textures of objects and living creatures, fragments of people walking, talking, working, celebrating, travelling, communicating and constantly moving.

THE ASTRONAUTS
The third story follows six astronaut-scientists who are also living isolated in a scientific NASA mission, simulating life on Mars for a year. They spend their daily routine within a tiny technological pod on a volcano in Hawaii, where a black and red volcanic landscape offers spectacular visual contrasts.

Blending fragments of modern urban daily routine with scenes from Agafya Lykova’s life that resemble old times with futuristic images from the isolated pod of the astronaut-scientists in Hawaii, Fever of The Light highlights in the end, all the small and great desires and needs that unite people and cross the borders of time.

Find out more about Rebecca here, about Rebecca’s film, The Forest in Me here – and about Rebecca’s exhibition at blackShed Gallery here.

Fever Of The Light: Opening on 17 February 2018 at The blackShed Art Gallery until 31 March 2018, Unit 3B, Russel Farm, Redlands Lane, Robertsbridge, TN32 5NG. Open Monday-Friday 10am-4pm. Saturday 10-4.30 Closed Sunday and Monday. The films will be a three screen installation showing the individual films on a 10-15 minute loop. 

Fever Of The Light is an Arts Council supported project.

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