Live performance with the projected films of Jean Painleve

Before David Attenborough and Jacques Cousteau – there was Jean Painleve. Poetic pioneer of science films, Painleve explored a twilight realm of vampire bats, seahorses, octopi, and liquid crystals. He made more than 200 science and nature films and was an early champion of the genre. Possessing a remarkable eye for life’s eerie curiosities, Painleve’s art pivots on the premise that ‘science is fiction’. He created a landscape of bug-eyed wonderment marked by a playful sense of nature’s hidden poetry and scandalised the scientific world with films designed to entertain as well as edify.

In 2001 American artrockers Yo La Tengo were selected by the San Francisco International Film Festival committee to compose new music for the films of Jean Painleve. Their alternately sombre and joyously moody music seemed like a natural fit for Painleve’s dramatic underwater studies. The score is available on CD and has just been released on a DVD entitled Science is Fiction, this evening is a rare opportunity to hear the material played live by the band and accompanied by the films.

Presented in association with BFI.

Registration required:

Yes

Free:

No