Follow the Master
Country: Scotland
Length: 73:00
Director: Matt Hulse
Producer: Wooda Arts & Matt Hulse
www.followthemaster.info
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Following the death of his 96 year old grandfather, Edinburgh filmmaker Matt Hulse embarks on a reflective pilgrimage, walking the 100 mile South Downs Way, a national trail between Winchester, the first capital of England, and the white chalk cliffs of Eastbourne. Accompanied by his girlfriend and their dog, their pace, like the movie’s, is serene and sincere, splashed somewhere between cinéma vérité and a video diary.
Shots of them walking through the evocative countryside are interlaced with Super 8 footage and interspersed with audio from his grandfather’s funeral.
Their legs become metronomes; the wind, and even passing trains provide testimonial voices in this sentimental journey of remembrances. It is primal filmmaking, with more introspective moments punctuated by the reading aloud of postcards to his grandfather and other family members.
This highly anticipated debut feature establishes Hulse as a Scottish iconoclast, a groundbreaking filmmaker who carries on the autobiographical tradition of filmmakers like North Carolinian Ross McElwee and proves in his own words, that cinema need not fill the screen with meaningless platitudes.
Instead he lets moments of self-expression speak for him: along the route he strums a ukulele, beats on air drums, and flies a kite in the nude. Sentiment stirred with humor is found in the Union Jack cocktail sticks he sets to mark each mile traveled and each year of his grandfather’s life.
And somewhere along the way, Hulse muses that death signifies not an end, but a start.
Eric Hulse (Executive Producer), Nick Currey & Matt Hulse (Editors), Matt Hulse (Music)
Screening with Charades.
Show Times:
Thursday, November 12, 4:30 PM - 5:50 PM @ Jengo's Playhouse
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