The Filmmaker's House. (12.)
Directed by Mark Isaacs.
Featuring Mark Isaacs, Keith Martin, Mikel Novosad, Zara Akram and Luz Nery Villada
This latest project by the acclaimed documentarian Isaacs (The Road: A Story of Life and Death, All White in Barking) is a fascinating exploration of what a documentary can be. Which is to say it's a bit boring, but in unique ways. At the start, Isaacs is informed that there is no funding for documentaries that aren't about serial killers or sensational crimes. So, bereft of funding the heard-but-not-seen filmmaker starts to work from home, turning the camera on a multi-cultural gathering – a fat white Arsenal supporting builder there to replace the fence, a Latin cleaner mourning the recent death of her mother, a Slovak homeless man just out of hospital and a hijabed Moslem neighbour observing Ramadam – in his East London terrace over a day. But, it's not quite that straightforward.
The project could be seen to be addressing any number of issues: multiculturalism, Brexit, the notion of home family and belonging, the value of charity, the value of documentary filmmaking. But for me, Isaacs offers a chilling portrait of that 21st-century phenomenon, the dispossessed middle class. Documentary filmmaker used to be a cushy little number with access to any number of ready income streams. Now, like many of the formerly middle incomed, he is being brutally squeezed, the ravages of unrestricted free enterprise have decimated his once protected markets and discovering the ineffectiveness of his liberal decency. He's just a step above the gig economy- he's trailblazing the route we're all heading towards.
Directed by Mark Isaacs.
Featuring Mark Isaacs, Keith Martin, Mikel Novosad, Zara Akram and Luz Nery Villada
This latest project by the acclaimed documentarian Isaacs (The Road: A Story of Life and Death, All White in Barking) is a fascinating exploration of what a documentary can be. Which is to say it's a bit boring, but in unique ways. At the start, Isaacs is informed that there is no funding for documentaries that aren't about serial killers or sensational crimes. So, bereft of funding the heard-but-not-seen filmmaker starts to work from home, turning the camera on a multi-cultural gathering – a fat white Arsenal supporting builder there to replace the fence, a Latin cleaner mourning the recent death of her mother, a Slovak homeless man just out of hospital and a hijabed Moslem neighbour observing Ramadam – in his East London terrace over a day. But, it's not quite that straightforward.
The project could be seen to be addressing any number of issues: multiculturalism, Brexit, the notion of home family and belonging, the value of charity, the value of documentary filmmaking. But for me, Isaacs offers a chilling portrait of that 21st-century phenomenon, the dispossessed middle class. Documentary filmmaker used to be a cushy little number with access to any number of ready income streams. Now, like many of the formerly middle incomed, he is being brutally squeezed, the ravages of unrestricted free enterprise have decimated his once protected markets and discovering the ineffectiveness of his liberal decency. He's just a step above the gig economy- he's trailblazing the route we're all heading towards.
