BELONGINGS
UK | 52 mins | [U]
Two strangers discover they are more closely enmeshed than they bargained for in this mid-Covid, melancholy romance.
A Frenchman arrives in Ramsgate to clear out the flat of a deceased woman and represent his family in a grievance against the NHS. A professional woman with worries on her mind tries to find solace from volunteering at a charity shop.
Frustrated by the loss of live performance over lockdown, theatremakers Glossop and Murray plunged straight into crafting their film feature debut, shot entirely on a shoestring using iphones. The result is a character-led story, with the ambivalent beauty of a Kent coastal town acting as a window into the two lonely protagonists’ inner worlds.
Underpinned by an exquisite score by Japanese composer Taichi Imanishi, Belongings explores our response to bereavement, loneliness and our attachment to things, and how redemption can only come through the renewing power of nature.
Writers / Directors: Karen Glossop, Paul Murray
Cast: Karen Glossop, Paul Murray
SCREENING
Saturday 29 June – 11.00
RAMSGATE COMMUNITY CINEMA
64 High Street Ramsgate CT11 9RS
MEET THE DIRECTORS
Performers Karen Glossop and Paul Murray co-founded Wishbone as a theatre partnership in 2001. Inspired by a joint interest in the dramatic power of images, space and sound, Murray and Glossop turned their hand to designing, writing and directing new original work. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Wishbone created and toured a succession of small-scale visual shows including the Total Theatre Award-winning Scapegoat (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, London International Mime Festival, UK & Europe tour) and the pocket-sized exploration of bipolar disorder, Mountain High Valley Low (WoW Festival, Southbank; Ramsgate Festival of Sound; Mind Festival Southbank; and a host of unusual venues). Confronted by the live performance ban over the pandemic, Glossop and Murray decided to expand into film-making as a natural extension of their fascination with the narrative power of the image. As well as Belongings (2023), Wishbone are currently developing a short film, The Viewing, which explores the challenge of confronting climate change as a solitary human individual.