Living With the Tudors
Director: Karen Guthrie and Nina PopeSynopsis
After 4 years of participation as costumed historical re-enactors, Karen Guthrie & Nina Pope were given unprecedented access with their cameras to the UK’s oldest and largest historical re-enactment at Kentwell Hall in rural Suffolk. Among the 500 volunteers spending their summer holidays re-creating every conceivable walk of 16th century English life, they met a core of fiercely loyal and protective re-enactors whose real life stories form a fascinating counterpoint to their chosen 16th century roles: they include Tissy, a former airline security guard who becomes the serene ‘lady of the manor’; Danny, a disaffected teenager who transforms into the gentlemanly and rather camp Master Riece, and Sue, a solicitor who never wants to leave the manor.
Shepherding through the thousands of paying visitors who keep Kentwell afloat, is owner Patrick Phillips, a distantly paternal leader who describes the epic spectacles as his ‘games’.
About the director
Artists Nina Pope & Karen Guthrie have worked together for over 12 years, with many of their early ‘new media’ projects using the re-enactment of familiar texts as the starting point for live art projects. In 2003 they decided to join a ‘real’ re-enactment and, after four years of participation in both the WW II & Tudor ‘recreations’ at the unique Kentwell Hall, they returned with their camera crew to film Living with the Tudors.
This is their second feature length documentary, their first Bata-ville: We are not afraid of the Future, premiered at The Edinburgh International Film Festival and SXSW.
Previous films:Bata-ville: We are not afraid of the Future
According to the filmmakers
”When we first visited Kentwell we were blown away by the epic mass improvisation that it really is, and wanted to know it from the inside. We volunteered as Tudor artists or ‘limners’, and even took part in WW2 events as Women’s Voluntary Service officers.
It’s been such a slow-burning project that we’ve been asked many times whether we were re-enactors or film-makers first…
It’s a fascinating question because it reveals in the viewer a bias we’re trying to examine in the film: Is re-enactment a ‘cult’ that per se means its members can’t be objective, or can a filmmaker assimilate themselves into their subject and still make a meaningful film about it?”
Sales/Screening Contact
- Email address:
Distribution Deals
- TV
- BE tv (Europe)
- DVD
- Soda Pictures (UK)
- Indiepix (US)
- "We were struck by the ambition of Pope and Guthrie’s vision, and by their witty, entertaining engagement with history. They clearly enjoy the work they do, telling stories that provoke interest with a broad audience." Turner prize winning artist Martin Creed on behalf of the Northern Arts Prize judges
- "This dry, droll and slightly dark documentary from the inimitably strange pair of British artist-filmmakers Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope (known collectively as Somewhere) explores the world of Kentwell Hall in Suffolk, England, home to a large-scale 16th century “reenactment.” Guthrie and Pope spent years in the reenactment world and gained the trust of some of its hardcore loyalists ... Alternately witty and sympathetic, “Living With the Tudors” moves beyond mere subculture anthropology into a kind of meditation on the desire, or need, we all sometimes feel to escape from our lives."
- "This is an exceptionally beautiful film that explores the life of tudor reenactors. Pope and Guthrie have created an emotional film that is deeply sensitive to the characters they meet. Its a must see for anyone interested in why people get involved in reenactment or what tudor life may have really involved, but it also redefines the boundaries between art and documentary."
- 2008 Northern Arts Prize Winner
- SXSW 08
- BRITDOC 07
- Sarasota Film Festival 08