Sunday 7 January 2018

Daniel Fawcett & Clara Pais: Film Panic Magazine / The Underground Film Studio



If you have any interest in underground cinema or experimentalism in the arts then we'd urge you to check out the essential Film Panic magazine, available as both a free pdf and limited edition print run.
Film Panic is beautifully compiled by artist-filmmakers, Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais, who create lavish, startling, dreamlike, unsettling, wonderful feature films under the banner of The Underground Film Studio.

 still from Black Sun
Clara and Daniel are two of the most industrious, creative, innovative, genuine and generous people we know. We had the pleasure of first meeting them in February 2017 when they invited us to screen our short film, Orphine (2014), in the beautiful city of Porto in Northern Portugal. 
D&C were perfect hosts for the three days we visited with our son, helping find us free accommodation with a relative, showing us all around Porto, Gaia and the seaside town of Espinho where we collaborated on an impromptu Surrealist black & white Super 8 film, starring our new friends, which we entitled, In The Arbor of the Bitter Orange (2017).
Daniel and Clara followed us back to the UK when they did a short British tour to promote their two most recent films: The Kingdom of Shadows (2016) and In Search of the Exile (2016). They soon joined us in our hometown of Galashiels, where all four of us put on an event, MoonMoths at the MacArts Church, an AvantKinema / Film Panic co-production, which featured absurdist comedy from Paul Vickers aka Mr Twonkey, experimental short films from around the world by Duncan Reekie (England), Walter Ungerer (USA), Dagie Brundert (Germany), Allan Brown (Canada) and ourselves. We also played indie music videos by all the bands we know, and had a special screening of the first feature Clara and Daniel created together, Savage Witches (2012). A couple of days later we put on a double bill screening - D&C's In Search of the Exile and our Merzfrau (2017) - at Edinburgh's brilliant Vegan-friendly arts cafe, The Forest, thanks to the wonderful Ela Nagaj.
Daniel and Clara have continued to support our work in many ways, including offering us an indepth interview for the most recent issue of Film Panic. D&C's thoughtful and insightful questions helped us fully consider our own filmmaking practice, our history in the arts and our philosophies of living. They are so dedicated to making Film Panic the definitive journal of contemporary underground and experimental cinema that each interviewee featured is likewise encouraged to spill their guts on their art.
You owe it to yourself to check out the free PDFs and/or purchase a limited edition copy of the beautifully put together print edition!
As well as a new series of shorts created with analogue video equipment and the latest feature, Black Sun (2017), Clara and Daniel have starred as performers in the feature, Phantom Islands, shot on location in Ireland by their friend, the amazingly talented film director Rouzbeh Rashidi, due for release in 2018. x
Underground Film Studio:
http://theundergroundfilmstudio.co.uk
Phantom Islands (dir: Rouzbeh Rashidi, 2018):
http://rouzbehrashidi.com/phantomislands/

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