Acquiescence
Posted at 17:33 on 6 Apr 2011 by Pandora / Blake
I have some very exciting news. A film I started making nearly four years ago is now, finally, available. Tom and I wrote and filmed Acquiescence with Michael Stamp and Stephen Lewis for Control and Reform in the summer of 2007, but the process of editing and finishing it has been a long and drawn out one (with some spankings along the way!). I haven't seen the final cut yet, but Michael Stamp has just sent me a trailer and the news that it's ready. Click on the picture to download the five-minute video preview:
This remains one of my favourite projects, and I'm very proud of it. It's a dark, psychological interrogation thriller set in a dystopian near-future. My character is dragged from her bed and into a state van in the middle of the night, and taken to a secure facility where she is questioned and isolated. She was never particularly political and her arrest comes as a complete and total shock. She has no idea what information they after, and (apart from references to certain forbidden sexual habits) she is never accused of anything more specific than "sedition". Her interrogators are verbally aggressive, but never touch her; and during the night and the long periods of solitude she is frequently hauled from her cell, blindfolded and shivering, and beaten by anonymous figures who never speak a word.
Then one day, a new interrogator arrives; a smooth-talking, civilised, quiet man who offers her bargains, playing increasingly complex mind games with her in an effort to undo her sense of time and identity. As the beatings and the interrogations escalate, she retreats inwards, clinging to whispered mantras as she escapes inwards to the safe space inside herself. When the final reckoning comes, she doesn't even know which side her interrogators are on. Are they trying to break her, or are they double agents, trying to re-make her as an activist with a renewed sense of purpose, strength and justice?
While this film is a Control and Reform production, it's not currently available to download from their website - new updates aren't being added at present, pending its re-launch as a members' site. Drop me an email if you want more info about the DVD release.
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