A YEAR IN A FIELD
Great Britain 2023
86 minutes
directed by: Christopher Morris
BAFTA awarded English author Christopher Morris makes one of the most unusual, artistically superior works of creative documentaries in this year. A film that invites you to forget the usual narrative constructions, to forget the almost obligatory anthropocentric events and surrender to the deep primordial rhythm that pulsates the planet.
Everywhere countless people experience the profound tragic destruction of the world and nature, and at the same time despair because of their powerlessness to oppose it. This is a magnificent film of true hope, which introduces us to time courses wider and more comprehensive than human time, which the author's voice only occasionally reminds us of. The film is a bold and uncompromising intention for one lone voice and one brilliant documentary to bravely confront the dark forces of destruction. The author takes us to a unique place in western Cornwall, in the very south of England, where a solitary monolith about 4000 years old stands in a picturesque landscape as a witness of time in its cyclical movement through the seasons. Like in Kubrick's cult film "2001 A Space Odyssey" we perceive this monolith as the presence of some, unknown to our world, intelligence capable of transmitting the impulses of change. Through shots of magnificent beauty, the film follows a life cycle of the field between two winter solstices. We immerse ourselves in the divine beauty of nature shaped by transcendent forces. In a sophisticated way the passionate observer films changes of the ubiquitous life and light during one annual cycle delicately introducing a pace that we have forgotten by separating ourselves from nature. In the magical moments of immersion in the enchanting and opaque world to which we belong, the author amazingly creates an experience of the rhythm of time in which the long and slow beats of the universe and the primeval pulsate.
This is a healing time capsule where we can pause and reflect in order to find our way out of the general rush of the world.
Born in Newport in Wales, Great Britain in 1963. Studied Graphic Design at Newport Art College (1981-1985). Studied filmmaking at Royal College of Art in London. Worked for the BBC in London and Cardiff (1989-2003) as a documentary director, factual producer and executive producer. His career in radio and television encompasses drama and commercials but primarily documentary. Since leaving the BBC in 2003, he has been working as an academic, freelance documentary maker and story consultant for feature documentaries. Worked as an academic at Newport Film School (2003-2015) setting up and ran the first three-year BA documentary film course in the UK. From 2009 to 2011 he was director of Newport Film School (founded and run in the early 1960's by John Grierson - who founded the documentary movement in the UK) and was awarded a chair as Professor of Documentary Film Practice (2011). Morris was director of the School of Film & Television at Falmouth University, Cornwall (2015-2020). Since 2020 he has returned full time to making films.
