International Mine Awareness Day: April 4th,2013
On this day 5 years ago I was in Baghdad dodging the mortars and rockets coming into the Green-zone from Sadr City with the Football/Mine Awareness charity Spirit of Soccer and their charismatic chief coach (and my good friend) Scotty Lee.
At one stage we actually did wonder if we would ever get out of Baghdad alive as the situation worsened. However, as things turned out it was to be the continuation of a journey that started back in a shell-shocked Sarajevo in the mid-1990s which since then has set out to capture the power of a game people play in-between life and death.
Minefield is an on-going film project about War, Football and Friendship. Unfortunately not considered to be ‘front-line’ enough by someone who’s sat in a job for far too-long at a certain UK TV station, that’s obsessed with celebrity Chefs, I thought it was now time to give real people a chance to watch the rough-cut and make up their own minds about whether I take the film into extra time and complete it or I call it a day and hang up my football boots and Kevlar jacket on it.
When Professional Respect and Trust disappear from the alchemy that gives you the confidence to believe in your film, then you may as well give up searching for the truth because you really don’t have a story anymore
Thanks to all those involved in getting the story this far: Marie Olesen (Producer) and Berny McGurk (Editor) Thanks also to Mogwai, their people and all the wonderful folk who’ve worked with Spirit of Soccer in Iraq, Cambodia, Bosnia,Kosova, Moldova and elsewhere:
Peace be upon you – Inshallah’
April 4th
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This is what we were doing 10 years ago this week in Glasgow,Scotland as http://www.autonomi.tv
10 years in which we’ve all lost something that’s fundamentally important to us as human beings,let along as film-makers and artists on our journeys through life and death in search of some truth in what we do. Well the one truth we all share now is that we’ve all been living a lie over that time and we’re all losers – even the now rich war criminals responsible for dragging us into an unjust decade of conflict. Shame on them and shame on the silence that’s been deliberately created by a cowardly mainstream media in a space where there should always be noise!
See You in the Next War!
10 years ago
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A story of Fear and Loathing in the Caucasus
I wasn’t quite sure where to place this material as it doesn’t really fit into any of the categories I’ve created on this site – other than existing as fragments and a pilot of sorts for a film that was never made called Pipe Dream (A story of Fear, Oil and Loathing in the Caucasus)
Shot in the late summer 2002′ in the year after the events of 9/11 and between making Bedroom Radio and Good Cop, what’s here are fragments from material I filmed as part of Thomas Goltz’s Oil Odyssey 2002. In the company of Goltz and a colourful assortment of variously traumatized war-hacks, Azeri Dancers, Moto-Cross champions, Montana Cowboys and Girls and the odd Californian millionaire biker, we followed the route of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline through the Caucasus region.
The whole road trip was like a cross between a geo-political version of Easy Rider and Fear and Loathing set in the Caucasus. Goltz some day says he might get around to making a film to accompany a book he’s published on the Oil Odyssey adventures. Check it out on Amazon.
BASTARDS, ORPHANS, WAIFS AND STRAYS
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What I do
On this website you can find out about my activity as a film-maker and video artist right back to when I was a teenage skinhead with a Super 8mm camera and a SONY …
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A few notes on what’s next
You’ll notice that many of the clips for my longer films on this site are for the most part either the opening 4/5 minutes of the film or an extract rather than ‘proper’ …
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Website launch Friday 1st March
Well – here’s the new website. Still needs a bit more proof reading, spell correction and weeding out – as it always will do and like I say it’s a process of evolution …
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Website set for Beta launch very soon
My new website is just about ready for a Beta launch, so I’ll be asking a small group of folk to cast a critical eye over it, from the point of view of …
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A reminder why Minefield is a film that I just have to complete by all means necessary!
“The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other,
Everyone having a share of the rewards.
It’s the way I see football, the way I see life.”
Bill Shankly
Better Re(a)d than Dead
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George Square 1919 -1990
With the current redesign of Glasgow’s George Square put on hold for reasons that have more to do with dirty-politics then Glasgow and it’s people, here’s a film I made in 1990 with the legendary/mythical/Rewind foot-notes and video artists Pictorial Heroes.
George Square was commissioned by Channel 4 as part of Glasgow’s year of culture and a time in history when the walls between East and West were tumbling down. It’s a short film dedicated to Glasgow, it’s people and a very special place with a history that the developers and politicians are trying to bury beneath a neo-liberal themepark. Share and enjoy!
George Squared
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