New documentary explores lockdown’s effects on Bristol culture – day and night

New documentary explores lockdown’s effects on Bristol culture – day and night

Posted on: 09 Oct 2023

A 60-minute, collaborative documentary from Colin Moody and Tom Whitson, What Does Normal Look Like? is set to be screened across two Bristol venues in the coming months.

 

What Does Normal Look Like? will be screened at Strange Brew on Sunday 22 October and The Cube on Thursday 9 November 2023.

 

“Your whole delusional dream of June being the day everything goes back to normality is a f***ing façade, fam.” – the documentary will open with two bespoke film events featuring live performances from key collaborator Kayla Painter at Strange Brew and percussionist Dan Johnson at The Cube.

 

Purchase tickets for the Strange Brew event, HERE, and The Cube, HERE.

The project began when the two filmmakers first met while photographing an empty city, driven by the need to document this period. Mini documentaries were created with Annie McGann of ‘Save Bristol Nightlife’ looking at individual venues and soon they were on a journey to capture the wider narrative of the city.

 

Pieces of Bristol’s lockdown experience are woven into the very fabric of this film, creating a collage documentary that represents the biggest psychological and irrevocable change of our lifetime – a powerful moment where some of realised what we need as a collective society.

 

One of the key focuses of the documentary is Bristol’s music community. Experimental percussionist Dan Johnson felt compelled to explore the acoustics of lockdown and recordings of his performances in an empty tunnel, as well as the thought provoking, fragmentic electronic music of Kayla Painter, form the film’s backbone.

The idea of venues as community spaces is another thread that runs throughout the film, broadening the definition of a community space and exploring venues birthed during lockdown as well as those which struggled. Featured venues include Strange Brew, Lost Horizon, Trinity Centre, St. Anne’s Boardmill Social Club and many more.

 

Reflecting the abnormality of the situation, this is not anormal documentary. A product of creative isolation, the filmmakers collaborated with other creatives to explore the intricacies of the lockdown experience. They developed a reactive filmmaking process which responded in real time to events such as the BLM and Kill The Bill marches.

 

Now, the filmmakers are taking the film back to the places which built the project as the release begins with two screenings in October/November before a wider release.

Tickets for What Does Normal Look Like? at Strange Brew on Sunday 22 October (followed by a live set from Kayla Painter) can be found HERE.

 

Tickets for What Does Normal Look Like? at The Cube on Thursday 9 November (followed by a live set from Dan Johnson) can be found HERE.

 

All images: Stills from Colin Moody and Tom Whitson's What Does Normal Look Like?

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Article by:

Stanley Gray

Stan is a born and bred Bristolian, recently graduated from studying English Literature in Sheffield. His passions are music and literature and he spends the majority of his time in venues all over the city, immersing himself in Bristol’s alternative music scene. A lifelong Bristol City fan, Stan’s Saturdays are spent watching his team both home and away.