Drum Room
Director: Miranda Pennell
Synopsis
The empty spaces of an ambiguous building open up to reveal a group of aspiring musicians as they play together, alone. Filmed within a music school, Drum Room focuses on the contradictory aspects of a regimented training environment which promotes an art form (rock music), whose ethos is most often identified with individualism and rebellion. The video frames the ‘inner world’ of the performers and their embodied experience, against a contrasting outer-reality.
Filmmaker and artist Pennell’s remarkable short has played at numerous art film festivals, galleries and fairs including London’s Tate Britain.
About the director
Miranda Pennell originally studied contemporary dance in New York and Amsterdam, after which she started to explore choreographic ideas through film and video. While her film work has led away from the specificity of contemporary dance, an interest in the nature of performance remains central to her films. Pennell’s work has been shown in different contexts including independent cinema, gallery, and broadcast. Her films and videos have received many awards, and funding from Arts Council England, Film London’s Artists Film and Video Awards, and the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation.
Previous films:You Made Me Love You
Fisticuffs
Magnetic North
According to the filmmakers
”I feel that the Foundation’s model is unusual in today’s climate and desperately important to ensure the development of a diverse and rich filmmaking culture in the 21st century.”
Sales/Screening Contact
- Email address:
- "[Miranda Pennell] illustrates very well the idea that the beauty of musical interpretation lies in the physical presence of the musician and the manner in which this presence inhabits the space. Sound becomes a form that colours silence." Christian Borghino, 2008, Clermont Ferrand
- Centre pour l
- ‘LAB’ Competition screening, Clermont Ferrand International Film Festival 2008
- International Contemporary Culture Centre of San Sebastian, TABACALERA
- La Chapelle Fromentin, La Rochelle 2008
- International Film Festival / 5 films by Pennell 2008