FISTICUFFS
2004 / 11 minutes / colour

A bloke walks into a pub...

Six actors punch, kick and wrestle their way through the Wild West of an East London drinking establishment.  
The ritual of the Western bar-brawl, is re-located to a London working mens' club.   The violence appears to have no consequences, the actors' bodies being as rubbery and invulnerable as those in the TV Westerns that inspired the film.

Fight choreography by the Ensemble, fight co-ordinator Tim Klotz

Performances Paul Benzing, Ian Bourn, Terry Kvasnik, Edward Marsden, Clare McKenna, Adrian Ross Jones, Kevin owntree. Also with the Members of the New Lansdowne Club Hackney, Johnny S’ & The Urban Country Stompers.

Funded by ‘Artist’s Film and Video Award’ Film London with the support of Channel 4

Awards Biennale of Moving Images, Geneva 2005; Best International Short Film Imaginario Film Festival,  Italy 2005 .

... The camera concentrates simultaneously on the deep space, mid space and the very closest fields, to reveal varying degrees of stillness and movement.   The choreographic quality of the fight-scenes is remarkable, with their breath-taking realisation providing an absolute contrast to the mundane ambience of the pub-scene in which they unfold.   At once surreal and real, this work is rich in contradictions: it is a parody of mainstream film-making, in particular that of action movies;  it also paints a picture, with dead-pan humour, of a social reality particular to the tradition of the English pub.
Jury statement, 11th Biennale Image en Movement, Geneva, Raymond BELLOUR (F), Jorge LA FERLA (Arg.), Ivica PINJUH (BZH), Katya GARCIA ANTON (CH) & Ika SIENKIEWICZ-NOWACKA (PL).