Shakespeare on film: Students respond to our Summer 2022 season
Student film-makers from Anglia Ruskin University explore Shakespeare’s plays in thought-provoking and ambitious short films
From Prospero’s Island to a space odyssey, this year’s collaborative film project with Anglia Ruskin University sees film students creatively respond to Shakespeare’s plays as part of our Summer 2022 season, in a series of short-form experimental films.
Marcia Lopes Tavares’s short film Lear, inspired by King Lear.
Over the past few months, ARU students from a range of disciplines attended workshops here at the Globe: they saw our unique space, the Globe Theatre, and learnt how Shakespearean audiences watched the plays in Elizabethan London.
Our Globe Practitioners explored select Shakespeare texts with students, and with Shakespeare as creative inspiration, seven films have been born, featuring well-known speeches from Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, Henry VIII, The Tempest, and King Lear.
‘The students at ARU have produced seven gems. They contain multitudes, from the galactic ambitions of Celestial (Beatrice and Benedick in space; we also have Beatrice and Benedick on the analyst’s couch) to the family tragedy of Lear (the familial rejection reimagined as brother-sister). Wolsey’s speech lamenting his fall in Henry VIII becomes a captivating meditation on migration and loss; Portia’s appeal to Brutus in Julius Caesar reappears as a shocking commentary on digital abstraction; and Prospero’s request to be freed by applause from his audience gets transformed into two wholly different but compellingly complementary forms. I have been absolutely stunned by the imagination, artistry, craft, professionalism and sheer hard work shown by the students this year’
— Dr Will Tosh, Head of Research at Shakespeare’s Globe
Watch the short films
“This film is different. It is bold, radiant and eccentric. We were inspired by Portia’s powerful voice in Julius Caesar. The film explores a rather playful take on her monologue, while having some melancholic undertones as to the state of society and the dystopian world this film takes place in“
— Ugne Jurgaityte & Yegor Chmilewsky, Co-Directors & Co-Producers
3 Wise Monkeys
“We wanted the audience to experience an exquisite and ethereal journey, as if travelling to space themselves. We reframed the narrative to be all about Beatrice and not Benedick, using the same chemistry between them in Much Ado About Nothing but with a twist”
— Omar Elhanbouly, Director & Wiktoria Chruslinska, Producer
Celestial
“Lear really hit home for me. I wanted to curate a piece that related to life experiences where me and those of a black background feel represented. Lear did exactly that and more. It brought to light the complex issues that derived from stigmatised upbringings and how throughout the generations it was never questioned, just accepted“
— Marcia Lopes Tavares, Writer & Director
Lear
“My Grandad had given me a children’s version of Shakespeare’s plays when I was younger, and I enjoyed The Tempest the most, which is why initially the Prospero extract resonated with me. But I also found it really interesting that a powerful magician was asking for permission to leave his home. It wasn’t a question of not being able to, there was more of a prevention mentally“
— Adriana Carlot, Director
Prospero’s Paradise
“Therapy is a colourful, bright, and feisty new take on Much Ado About Nothing.There’s such an interesting power dynamic between Beatrice and Benedick which was very fun to play with and manipulate during the writing process and with the actors on set“
— Martha Wallam, Director
Therapy
“Prospero’s epilogue is strange. Prosodically, tonally, it’s hard to pin down and reveals a conflict at the core of his character. For all his ‘art’ and exile, his power still comes from exploiting others. When they’re gone, Prospero is completely vulnerable and must figure out who he’s going to be. It’s an incredibly engaging moment in his arc and I continue to be really drawn to it“
— James Hartley, Director
The Marvellous Prospero
“We were intrigued by Wolsey’s experience of dedicating his life to serving one particular goal and how his fall from grace exposed the flimsy foundations – he needed a whole structure of power around him to reaffirm his status. That experience resonates on many levels, from something as relatively benign as retiring from a successful career to the extreme of having to give up everything to move to a new country where your language and qualifications count for nothing and all status is lost in the transition“
— Beatrice B-Cohen, Alannah Beaumont & Pablo Tranchell, Co-Directors
Wolsey’s Lament
