A diverse group of British people respond to an ad from artist Gillian Wearing. Taking part in an experiment with Method acting, they find themselves for the first time confronting their innermost personal truths.
If you were to play a part in a film, would you be yourself or a fictional character?
Gillian Wearing. Self Made / 2010 / 1hr& 28mins / Rated 15
Artist Gillian Wearing places an ad asking, “Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character.” Her film Self Made documents the intense, revealing and sometimes disturbing experiences of seven people who sign up for the project. They take part in a series of workshops led by Method acting teacher Sam Rumbelow, who uses different techniques to help them access their memories and personal experiences so that each participant can create a vivid and authentic moment of performance. Gradually, we see five members of the group working towards their own individual ‘end scenes’, filmed dramatic vignettes that directly emerge from their personal histories. The scenes range from episodes of violence, to images of imagined love, via an excerpt from Shakespeare’s King Lear. As the lights finally go off in the studio, the participants leave the experiment having for the first time confronted and articulated deep truths about themselves.
Film is rated 15 and contains very strong language and strong violence. For more guidance please check the BBFC website.
Director Gillian Wearing Throughout the past two decades, Gillian Wearing’s films, photographs and sculptures have investigated public personas and private lives. Since the beginning of her career, the artist has drawn from techniques of theatre, reality television and fly-on-the-wall documentary-making to construct narratives that explore personal fantasies and confessions, individual traumas, cultural histories, and the role of the media. Anonymity through elaborate masks, costumes and role-play has remained a critical part of Wearing’s practice and influential investigation of the ways in which individuals present themselves to others when the self is temporarily concealed.
Producer Lisa Marie Russo is a filmmaker and has led three UK Funds. She's produced/EP’ed over thirty features, including Nothing Compares and Is There Anybody Out There?, the shorts The Nightcrawlers (Emmy) and The Black Cop (Bafta) and the Ukrainian doc, A Poem for Little People (Co-Producer). Her companies are Fly Film and recently, Autofiction, with multi-BAFTA and Emmy winning director Marc Munden (The Sympathizer, Help, Utopia). She consults for Sheffield DocFest MeetMarket and is developing the animation feature Lollipop Tattoo. LM is a member of ACE Producers, Bafta and the European Film Academy and started her career as a documentary director at PBS station WHYY in Philadelphia. Last summer she was a juror on the Odesya Film Festival in Kyiv, then she bought a camera and filmed behind the scenes in Malaysia on the BBC1 four-part adaptation of Lord of the Flies, written by Jack Thorne and directed by Marc Munden.
Presented in partnership with Short Circuit A programme of experimental short docs exploring theme of artists film and Self Made will screen on Thursday 9 October.
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