Category: Film Archive

***Thank you to everyone who made a submission to this Open Call. Selected work and dates of exhibitions are now up on this website***

With the success of DIVFUSE Sound Archive calling for sound-based work with field recordings elements, we are excited to be launching a new Open Call on short films.

Theme for this first edition : Domesticity

Deadline for submissions : 31 March 2025 [Extended]

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN THE SUBMISSION:

1) Text on the each piece/series (300 words maximum). This shall include the name, year and duration of the work.

2) Artists’ bio (200 words maximum)

3) A link to the work. It could be a link to Vimeo for example but please do not send us the file to download.

4) Send the submission through by email to divfuse@gmail.com on or before 31 March 2025.

OTHER CONDITIONS:

1) Only digital versions are acceptable. Work can be fully digital or video finished Standard 8mm, Super 8 or 16mm films.

2) Only one submission can be made by each artist (or group of artists who work together).

3) The work or series of work shall be between 30 and 45 minutes long and can be made up of different pieces/parts.

4) Selected work will EACH be shown in multiple screening sessions for a weekend (Friday to Sunday) for free between April and June 2025 at Project DIVFUSE micro digital and multi-media art gallery, London. There is no payment to the artists but we will offer the following:

* micro gallery space (4m x 2.8m) for screenings.

* basic equipments for use for the screenings inside the gallery, including 2 x small Genelec speakers on stands, a Genelec subwoofer, a projector and a laptop to play the file(s) from.

* management of the exhibition including invigilating the space and promotion on social media.

5) Artists whose work is selected will have to make sure that the files reach the gallery at least a week before the exhibition.  Additional information such as images from the work will also be required for social media posting.

6) If selected, digital files could be transferred over to Project DIVFUSE for use for the screening sessions for this Open Call only.

7) Artists who are based in London will be invited to do two or three sessions of artists talks. Both the screenings and the talk will be ticketed. ALL income from the screenings will go to the space to support the running of the project. Income from the artist’s talk will be split 60/40 between Project DIVFUSE and the artist. Again, this will help to cover some of the overhead costs for running and managing the events.

Dialogues by Sopie Standford (UK) is one of the three sets of work that are selected from DIVFUSE Film Archive Open Call No.1 with a theme on domesticity.

Film Screenings:

Session One 6 June 2025 Friday 7pm
Session Two 7 June Saturday 3pm
Session Three 7 June Saturday 4:30pm
Session Four 7 June Saturday 6pm
Session Five 8 June Sunday 3pm
Session Six 8 June Sunday 4:30pm

£5 | 8 places only per session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets

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Running time: 32 minutes. The screenings will be presenting a collection of eight short moving image videos made by Sophie Standford, including:

Dialogue with my Father (2022-2025)
Duration: 7’20” Location: Suffolk

What if you can’t allow yourself to let go of something because it reminds you so profoundly of the person who has gone? What if this holding on to the past has become self destructive, to the point where objects are taking over?

Dialogue with my Father explores the inter-generational relationship between father and daughter; grief and loss; the piano that belonged to my father, on which he used to compose. I push the heavy bulk of this domestic, upright instrument around on the concrete floor trying and failing to find it space in the room. Frustration strips the piano of its dignity, tortured and destroyed. Braced, it fights back stoically, belligerent, vibrating a dance to its raucous rumbling, as its dainty wheels twist in agony under its defiant weight. In contrast, the video takes you on a mesmerising journey inside the piano accompanied by a composition that gives voice to its involuntary creeks and resonances.

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Home (2011)
Duration: 2’42” Location: London

Home is a performance to camera. It is transparent in its construction: born out of frustration; of playing the role of mother; of confined living space; trapped by domesticity, responsibility and a sense of duty.

Notes on Listening (UK) is one of the three sets of work that are selected from DIVFUSE Film Archive Open Call No.1 with a theme on domesticity.

Film Screenings + Audio Essay + Photography Documentation :

Session One 25 July 2025 Friday 7pm (+ artist’s talk) [FULL]
Session Two 26 July Saturday 3pm
Session Three 26 July Saturday 4:30pm
Session Four 26 July Saturday 6pm (+ artist’s talk)
Session Five 27 July Sunday 3pm
Session Six 27 July Sunday 4:30pm

£8 for sessions with artist’s talk and £5 for other sessions | 8 places only per session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets

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Running time : 45 minutes. The screenings will be presenting the experimental film Notes on Listening (2024), an audio essay More Than Background (2023) and a series of photography by Raquel Diniz on the making of Notes on Listening.

Notes on Listening is a groundbreaking practice-based research film that captures the essence of people, sound, and place in Peckham, London—a neighbourhood on the brink of cultural displacement due to gentrification. Winner of the prestigious BAFTSS Award (British Association of Film, TV, and Screen Media Studies) in 2024, this experimental documentary employs a unique ‘sensory documentary’ approach. Using sound as the driving force, it immerses viewers in Peckham’s vibrant yet threatened community.

What the judges from BAFTSS had to say:

“The panel agreed that NOTES ON LISTENING is a highly original sound-driven narrative documentary that successfully puts the audience inside the area it explores, Peckham in London. The film skilfully represents the complex and unique soundscape of this London borough, giving a visual and sonic sense of its vivacity and vibrancy. In doing so, it makes a clear case for resisting the impending threats posed by encroaching gentrification. The panel commended the filmmaker’s creative and intricate approach, which provides a vivid evocation of Peckham’s rich cultural life.”

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44 Gatherings by Gabriella Day (UK) is one of the three sets of work that are selected from DIVFUSE Film Archive Open Call No.1 with a theme on domesticity.

Film Screenings:
Session One 9 August Saturday 4pm (+artist’s talk) [Cancelled]
Session Two 9 August Saturday 6pm (+ artist’s talk) [Cancelled]
Session Three 10 August Sunday 3pm
Session Four 10 August Sunday 4:30pm

£8 for sessions with artist’s talk and £5 for other sessions | 8 places only per session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets

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Running time: 31 minutes.

44 Gatherings (2025) is a film that creates a space between abstraction and figuration with a familiar human gesture: folding sheets. The performers, who are folding sheets of household fabric, were given basic restrictions of filming without being choreographed so that this single-take captures moments of vulnerability and awkwardness. The live guitar, played by Michael Raphael, responds to the movement of the performers as well as the formal qualities of the fabric. The repetition of this over-looked activity aims to abstract the movement into colour and form and to create an ever-changing composition. 

Gabriella Day (b. 1998, Bristol) is an artist based between London and Glasgow working with painting, film and collage. Throughout all mediums, Gabriella’s work aims to find automatic compositions that capture the act of placing forms together without an initial intention to make a picture, something that is often found in acts of daily life.  Through this process, Day’s work fragments moments of representation until colour and form are at the forefront. 

@gabrielladay 

Image by Gabriella Day

Lecture performance:

Session One 12 September 2025 Friday 5pm
Session Two 12 September 6pm
Session Three 12 September 7pm

6 places only per session | Tickets

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Running Time : Lecture performance 15 minutes approximately + 23 minutes video

Expanded from Rizki Lazuardi’s Mr Balangue’s Telex Report (2020), this spatial installation and lecture performance are an analytical speculation on the pre-production of 1982 Peter Weir’s feature The Year of Living Dangerously. Portraying the downfall of socialist-leaning Indonesian first president Soekarno, the motion picture adaptation of CJ Koch novel was going to be produced in Jakarta but had to be ultimately relocated to Manila as shooting permit was rejected, which led to Weir’s expression “All slums look alike, after all”.

The essay film and objects are artifacts “constructed” from the reconnaissance trip of the set director to Jakarta.

The film Mr Balangue’s Telex Report (2020) will also be shown at Close-up cinema on 6 September 2025 as part of After Gutta Percha: on Lab Laba Laba & Karel Doing.

This event is funded by The British Council.