Film Preview: Death On Screen @ Wellcome Collection

By Sponsor Last edited 134 months ago
Film Preview: Death On Screen @ Wellcome Collection

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Wellcome Collection.

Wellcome Collection's current major exhibition is all about death and on Saturday 19 January, they're hosting a morbid yet fascinating day of feature films and shorts on the subject. The free event, Death on Screen will present three eclectic films offering iconic, philosophical and comedic perspectives on death, plus a specially curated programme of rolling shorts bringing together some of the best artist films on this subject.

Richard Linklater’s 2001 film Waking Life focusses on dreams, consciousness and existentialism and uses a method of animation called rotoscoping to create the feeling of life as a waking death. Hal Ashby’s cult classic from 1971 Harold and Maude fuses black comedy with off-the-wall romantic drama, soundtracked brilliantly by Cat Stevens. Finally, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s iconic film The Seventh Seal, released in 1957 is a harrowing account of one knight’s quest for truth and includes perhaps the most well-known example of Death as a character on screen.

A programme of shorts curated by Wild Gift, a curatorial team consisting of artist Rosie Cooper and writer David Lillington, accompanies the features. Their selection, "Dying on Screen" consists of films which view death as a thing we perform and screens works that comment on death as it happens on the stage of real life.

The accompanying exhibition, "Death: A self-portrait" will also be open to look round. Read our review here.

Death on Screen takes place on Saturday 19 January between 11am-7.45pm. Tickets are free but must be booked in advance at www.wellcomecollection.org/deathonscreen. The shorts programme is drop-in – no booking required.

Last Updated 07 January 2013