Sarah Pucill is a London-based film artist. Her work is distributed by LUX, London and LightCone, Paris. She is a Reader at

University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Polyte ...

. Central to her work is "a concern with mortality and the materiality of the filmmaking process". Much of her work appears within the restrictions of domestic spaces. In her "explorations of the animate and inanimate, her work probes a journey between mirror and surface".

Career

Pucill studied in London at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. ''You Be Mother'' (1990), was Pucill's first film. It won awards for Best Innovation, Atlanta, 1995; and Best Experimental Film, Oberhausen, 1991. In 2011, it was exhibited in "Moving Portraits" at the

De La Warr Pavilion The De La Warr Pavilion is a grade I listed building, located on the seafront at Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex, on the south coast of England. The Modernist and International Style building was designed by the architects Erich Mendelsohn and S ...

, Bexhill, Sussex, and in 2004 at ''A Century of Artists' Film in Britain'' at

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

. The 1990s saw the emergence of Pucill's particular artistic vision in experimental film, and her work has appeared internationally in both galleries and cinemas. Retrospective screenings including "A History of Artists Film and Video" (2007) have been held at BFI Southbank in 2011, to commemorate 50 years since Maya Deren's death. Pucill's work was included in "Assembly: A survey of recent artists" film and video in Britain 2008–2013' at

, 2014. Her 2010 film, ''Phantom Rhapsody'' was shown at the

Edinburgh International Film Festival The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) is a film festival that runs for two weeks in June each year. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films (all ti ...

, and at the L'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts Paris, and at the Tate Britain, Millennium Film, Anthology Film Archives, New York, Pleasure Dome, Toronto. The film examines the phantom's appearance and disappearance in relation to the "present/absent dynamic of visible lesbian sexuality" in both the history of cinema and art history. In 2013, her film ''Magic Mirror'' was funded by Arts Council England and published as a DVD by LUX. ''Magic Mirror'' examines the word and image connections in Claude Cahun's writing from her book Aveux non avenus (Disavowals) through a re-staging of her photographs. ''Magic Mirror'', which is "part essay, part film poem", seeks to explore the links between Cahun's photographs and her writings. The film premiered at

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

in April 2013, and was shown at the

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...

. "Magic Mirror" was staged as an exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery, London, in the exhibition "Magic Mirror" (17 April – 14 June 2015), curated by Karen Leroy-Harris which showed photographs by Claude Cahun, with the film and photographs by Sarah Pucill. In 2016, Pucill completed her second 16mm film that re-stages photographs by Claude Cahun; "Confessions to the Mirror" (2016), which was funded by Arts Council England. The film premiered at London Film Festival, 2016 and was produced as a blu-ray by LUX, London. "Confessions to the Mirror" (2016) was exhibited in the exhibition, "Under the Skin" that showed photographs by Claude Cahun at Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen, Holland at (October 2020 – May 2021). The exhibition toured with "Confessions to the Mirror" to Kunsthal Museum Gallery, Rotterdam, 2022. In 2019, Pucill exhibited the film installation "Garden Self Portraits" (2019) which includes clips from "Confessions to the Mirror" at Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa in the exhibition "Facing Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore", (Sep14th2019-Feb9th2020), curated by Michelle Gewurtz. Pucill's film "Eye Cut" (16mm col, 20min, 2021) premiered at the

London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and sho ...

in 2021. It won best experimental film at Toronto Women Film Festival 2021 and Best Experimental Film award at London New Wave Cinema. She appears in a documentary "Gelebte Träume – Künstlerinnen des Surrealismus" by Maria Anna Tappeiner for ARTE TV, Germany, that shows clips from her Cahun films(2013,2016). Her films have been screened at numerous international film festivals, including: the BFI London Film Festival, the

International Short Film Festival Oberhausen The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, founded in 1954, is one of the oldest short film festivals in the world. Held in Oberhausen, it is one of the major international platforms for the short form. The festival holds an International C ...

, the

Ann Arbor Film Festival The Ann Arbor Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Ann Arbor in the U.S. state of Michigan. Established in 1963, it is the fourth-oldest film festival in North America (after the Yorkton Film Festival, 1947; Columbus International Film ...

European Media Art Festival

Berlinale The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

and the Montréal Festival of New Cinema. Television broadcasts of her films include: BSB TV Australia (''Mirrored Measure'', 1996), Carlton Television (''Backcomb'', 1995), and

Granada TV ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was its ...

(''You Be Mother'', 1980). She has been teaching at the

since 2000 where she is currently a Reader and where she received a PhD in 2014.

Filmography

Pucill's films include: *
You Be Mother
', 1990 *
Milk and Glass
', 1993 *

', 1995 *

', 1996 *

', 1998 *

', 2000 *

', 2004 *
Taking My Skin
', 2006 *
Blind Light
', 2007 *

', 2009 *
Phantom Rhapsody
', 2010 *
Magic Mirror
', 2013
''Confessions To The Mirror''
, 2016
''Eye Cut''
, 2021

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pucill, Sarah Living people British video artists Women video artists British film directors Academics of the University of Westminster British women film directors Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Year of birth missing (living people)