gsff//the dead man’s waltz: story’s end

The Glasgow Short Film Festival began with a ‘quiet bang’ last night (only people who were there will get that...) with a wonderfully strange event created by the Scottish band The Dead Man’s Waltz. They brought together music, film and spoken word to explore death in a way that managed to be beautiful, witty and a little creepy at the same time. The night began with an eerie echo of Keaton Henson’s gig the night before - a darkened room, a spotlight, a cello, a bearded man (albeit on a piano this time) and a blank projector screen - but as the evening went on it evolved into something far more complex and intriguing. The night included...

A black and white film about a man struggling to write, his hands blackened, his tiny room slowly swelling with discarded attempts, curious markings appearing to him as revelations in a sea of confusion... while The Dead Man’s Waltz played a haunting and beautiful melody to accompany it.

Readings from Scottish author Hal Duncan - who played the frustrated writer in the first film - again accompanied by a live soundtrack. Duncan could not have been more perfect for this event - resembling a mixture of the post-punk musician Nick Cave and a character from Tim Burton’s drawings, the self-dubbed ‘carnival freak’ lead the audience into an awed silence with his uncanny tales of tiny toymakers and of ‘the boy who loved death’.

A collaboration between the band and animator Thomas Hicks, resulting in the short film/music video ‘Emmeline’ which tells the tale of a sailor promising to return to his love as he leaves for war in 1939. It is a sweet yet tragic sea shanty of a song, and is worth a listen/look. (Imagine it on a big screen) Emmeline music video

The show is going to tour later in the year so i won’t give any more away, but it is definitely worth getting a ticket to see it if you can. Also check out The Dead Man's Waltz here. Fallow Fields, Emmeline and Swings and Roundabouts really stood out as the best songs on the night.

Hanna xx

[I’m volunteering for the Glasgow Film Festival this year, so expect lots of posts about it...]