Ewan Golder
Laughter Far Away - Film - 27min - 2016
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 18
The film follows Colin, a disillusioned young man, alcoholic, destroyed, vulnerable and practically mute. Colin wanders an eerie and desolate landscape, a surreal netherworld, on the last day of his life. Three local men have lost their mobile phone which somehow has ended up in Colin’s pocket. We hear the voice mail messages which build up a picture of small town life and also seems to build up to an imminent drug deal which seems to be leading to a violent confrontation. He is haunted by a spectre, a strange phantom, a personification of darkness, oblivion, of alcohol, and the spirit of the landscape, who seems to be pulling the strings of Colin’s doomed destiny. Colin’s hallucinations will culminate in an in intense spiritual experience and Colin’s subconscious netherworld will violently bursts into reality.
Dungeness and the Romney Marsh on the South East Coast of England will be the setting for this nether world, a shingle drift technically classed as a desert. Ewan grew up in this landscape and returns to explore a world that is at once mentally confining and yet physically vast.
A hybrid film using a narrative, spiritual music, strange hallucinations and projections to poetically represent the state of mind, the visions and the spiritual journey of the main character.
*Laughter Far Away* is an immersive, hypnotic journey into the surreal drunken nether world of a young, emotionally scarred man desperately seeking oblivion, at the edge of the world, the edge of life.Ewan Golder
Born and raised in a small town on the Romney Marsh, on the wind swept coast of South East England¬, Ewan has always been equally preoccupied by the uncanny, the macabre and the absurd, and the delicate, the graceful and the transcendent. After graduation in Media Production, Ewan’s interests have been broad, learning his craft as a filmmaker through a series of short films, music videos, experimental documentaries and video art. His most recent work has focused on attempting to create a subjective sensation in the viewer, an immersive experience, working with the assumption that unusual insights and perspectives are possible in characters who are somehow at odds with mainstream society. His most recent short films have explored alcoholism, homelessness and Alzheimer's disease and have been shown in film festivals in the UK and worldwide including the British Short Festival, in Berlin, the Szczecin European Film Festival, in Poland, the ArtPlay Film Festival, in Moscow, the Blow Up Film Festival, in Chicago, and the Jewish film Festival, in the UK.
He is currently living and working in Folkestone, England, and Lille, France where he is enrolled in the postgraduate programme at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains.
Production
Acknowledgments
All Saints Church Lydd & Reverend Sarah Williams Benefice
Mr Paul Salt and the staff of New Romney Caravan Park
Fairfield Church Brookland, Reverend Shunabody
M & M Richardson Fish, Dungeness, Griggs Of Hythe
Kent Film Office, Owen Leyshon; Howard Bates
Andy & Cathy of The Lime Bar, Folkestone
Carol Grimes’Community Womens Chior
Sharon McCarron, Hannah Heath-Hall, Alexandru Petru Bădeliţă
Matt Rowe, Valerie Golder, South East Media UK
The Quaterhouse Folkestone
Madeleine Van Doren, Daniel Dobbels
