The Civic Life DVD
reflects on and features the complete Civic Life
series of 7 short films including Who Killed Brown Owl,
winner of the Best British Short Film Award at the Edinburgh
International Film Festival 2004. Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor
(desperate optimists) embarked on the Civic Life
series in July 2003 with the desire to create a unique and richly
cinematic series of short films made in negotiation with local
residents and community groups and foregrounding the relationship
these local communities have to the environments in which they
live and work. Each of the films was shot in a day, on 35mm
cinemascope making use of the long shot. The DVD will offer
audiences the first opportunity to view all seven of the Civic
Life films and includes an accompanying 56 page illustrated
book edited by Gareth Evans and featuring texts by Ben Slater,
Chris Darke, Lucy Reynolds and Sukhdev Sandhu.
Click
here to buy the Civic Life DVD
distributed by Unbound
ISBN 0955129520
£15.00
Reviews of the Civic Life DVD can be read on
the DVD
Times website and on backprojetion.com.
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Extracts of reviews of the Best
v Best DVD which features Who
Killed Brown Owl.
Scriptwriter January 2006 - Steve Brookes
"Who Killed Brown Owl - joint winner of Best Short Film at
last year's Edinburgh International Film Festival - is a unique
and oddly compelling film that combines experimental narrative
with elements of classic English Murder-Mystery. It's a treat
for the eyes with fluid cinematography that follows the carefully
choreographed action of a summer's day in the park - sun-bathers,
a rabbit in a boat, a tortoise on a sleeping girl, a baby in the
bulrushes and a bicycle accident - all in a single sequence shot
worthy of Robert Altman. The directors, Christine Molloy and Joe
Lawlor, make clever use of a surprisingly tense Vaughan Williams
score that offers the pleasure of the composer's retropastoral
sound while putting an ironic distance on all things cosy and
English. The picture of Brown Owl, lying face down with an axe
embedded in her back and surrounded by a group of solemn-faced
girl-scouts, is one of the more memorable images in recent British
cinema."
Times Knowledge 10/12/05
"..the breadth of tone is astonishing. As is the verve and
sophistication of films such as Who Killed Brown Owl, which describes
- and then punctures - scenes of sun-dappled recreation in a London
park. Shot in one fluid, ten-minute take, Christine Molloy and
Joe Lawlor's beautifully subversive curio is the best of this
splendid clump of short and curlies."
Time Out 29/11/05 - Ben Walters
"'Who Killed Brown Owl' offers a witty, eerie undermining
of English bucolic in one long take."
FilmExposed - Beatrice Hitchman
"Paradoxically, it’s the film which appears to have
the lowest budget – made as a community collaborative project
in Enfield – that has the biggest impact. Who Killed Brown
Owl is a single-take swoop over an idyllic summer’s day
in a British park, in which all is decidedly not as it seems.
Citing Agatha Christie and Turner paintings as influences, Who
Killed Brown Owl is a feat of cinematography, and a haunting,
witty and evocative piece which stays in the viewer’s mind
all day, all night - probably all year. A great end to a great
showcase, proving that in spite of the difficulties of the gutter,
short film-makers are aiming for the stars. Roll on, Vol 2."
Total Film Issue 110 - January 2006
- Andy Lowe
"But the piece that most screams, 'Give this man a feature!'
[desperate optimists']Who Killed Brown Owl, a dreamy, one-shot
meander around a suburban murder-mystery montage. Think Jarvis
Cocker apeing Scorsese in the style of Bruegel. All in 10 cosy
minutes."
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