South African film the Silent Form set to premiere at Hot Docs 06

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South African film The Silent Form set to premiere at Hot Docs 2016 --

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 11:28

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Director Simon Wood s latest film The Silent Form will have its world premiere at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival 2016, North America s largest documentary film festival. This is the second year running that Wood has had a film selected for the festival following his 2015 film Orbis which is still featuring on the international festival circuit.

The Silent Form is a collaboration between Wood and South African sculptor Dylan Lewis. After decades of sculpting alone in his studio, Wood was the first filmmaker to be allowed to document Lewis working. In accepting Lewis need for a private work environment, Wood stepped out of his own comfort zone and decided to shoot the film entirely himself. The sculptor and the filmmaker collaborated together for two years.

After many months of shooting Dylan in his studio, I noticed his reluctance to offer an explanation for his work, says Wood. We would often film for several hours without exchanging a single word. This made me wonder about the limitation of language to describe art. I felt he was basically forcing me to interpret his work. This sent Wood to deserted diamond mining towns, the vast Namibian desert and South Africa s treacherous western shoreline littered with colonial shipwrecks. The film kind of feels like a tussle between Dylan the sculptor and myself, the filmmaker, with our competing visual grammars.

Wood worked with editor Khalid Shamis in post-production who has cut all of his previous projects. Khalid and I finally agreed on a picture lock on the 27th cut so it was a fairly drawn out process. The two of us decided to bring in a dedicated sound designer whilst we were still cutting and we were fortunate to get Jo o Orechia who created some extraordinary soundscapes which pushed the edit forward creatively. I finished the film at Tint in Johannesburg where Yoav Dagan did a brilliant job with the colour grade and Guy Steer created an excellent final mix.

The Silent Form is a SaltPeter Production.

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival 2016 will take place from 28 April to 8 May in Toronto, Canada.

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