Our Film For Friday in September is Singing for the Sea by Bethan Huws.
Shot in the summer of 1993, the film documents a group of eight female Bulgarian singers performing on a beach in Alnwick, Northumberland, on the coast of the North Sea.
In traditional Bulgarian costume, the women – known collectively as the Bistrista Babi (or Bistrista Grandmothers) – are seen singing and dancing at the water’s edge. Sequences of the performance are juxtaposed with close-ups of the ebbing tide, but the film was otherwise shot and edited with a minimum of filmic effects.
Co-commissioned by Artangel and Antwerp 93, the film was the result of a performance, organised by Huws together with Artangel, titled Concert for the Sea, which took place at high tide in front of a live audience over three consecutive evenings in July 1993.
Co-commissioned by Artangel and Antwerp 93.