Glasgow artists join together for lockdown phone film project

Stewart Ennis is one of 15 artists taking part in an uplifting project from city-based theatre company Visible Fictions.

Artistic director Douglas Irvine explained: “‘In this strange and unpredictable time, we wanted to give artists the opportunity to keep creating and treat our online audiences to some original work.

“We put out an open call for people to create one-minute films on their mobile phones while in lockdown and the response was so varied and interesting, we commissioned 15 instead of the original 10 we had planned.”

He adds: “We hope all who watch and have made the films find Phone Fictions to be an uplifting and inspiring experience.”

The films, which will be shown all together in a ‘Watch Party’ tomorrow (Tuesday, April 28) at 3pm on Facebook and afterwards on Visible Fictions’ website, include everything from stop frame animation and original music to sketches and monologues.

Glasgow artists involved include set and costume designer Christine Urquhart and writer and performer Zoe Bullock, who collaborated on Little Spoon’s Adventure which, they say, allowed them to “play with food and pretend to whizz around in space”; and young filmmaker Cameron Strachan, whose short The Daily Paw was inspired by his own dog’s “absurdity in day to day life.”

Theatre maker and director Nikki Kalkman, who is also from Glasgow, says her film, Dancing Shoes, was inspired by her love of high heels but her inability to walk in them.

“Once upon a time, I lived in Australia, a place of even sidewalks – not a cobblestone in sight,” she smiles.

“It was a place where you had to drive everywhere, a place where I had amassed a collection of beautiful stiletto heeled shoes that I could wear any day of the week.

“However, when I migrated to Scotland, most of these heels remained in Australia to be adopted by my mother and two sisters.

“Two stowaways made it across the Indian Ocean in my luggage and now sat gathering dust in my wardrobe, unable to be worn unless taxi usage and clear weather aligned themselves in a miracle on a Saturday night in Glasgow.”

She adds: “This was the early inspiration for Dancing Shoes. I sat and thought staring at my poor forgotten shoes. Did they miss hitting the town and strutting their stuff?

“What happens to our shoes when we aren’t looking?”

For Stewart Ennis, actor, playwright, novelist and poet, his short film Granny and Grandpa was about celebrating the special relationship children have with their grandparents.

“Granny and Grandpa isn’t quite biographical but I was definitely inspired by thoughts of my own grandparents, who were both larger than life characters but very different in temperament,” he explains.

“I remember my grandfather’s hearing was quite poor (something I’ve inherited) and as he didn’t like to wear his hearing aids, it had an impact on their ability to have a ‘normal’ conversation.

“Nevertheless, there was a sense of warmth, peace and contentment in their relationship; a kind of calm understanding that they’d earned because they worked at it.”

Stewart’s short stories and poems have been published in a variety of anthologies.

He was an early recipient of a Playwright Studio Scotland Ignite award and has written a number of works for theatre including, The Darkroom, Robert Burns’ Celtic Complex and The Monster and Mary Shelley.

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Blessed Assurance, which was published last year, is his first novel.

Stewart says his grandparents have “turned up” in many of his stories and poems over the years.

“They have both made a big impact on me, in many ways,” he says.

“Also, I sometimes write in the Botanic Gardens and when I see grandparents and grandchildren out for a wander, I am frequently reminded of how special that relationship is.”

Being ‘locked down and in the creative doldrums’, Stewart says Phone Fictions came along at just the right time.

“It felt like exactly the sort of pick-me-up that I needed,” he says.

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“I have also been aware that the lockdown has nudged me into contacting - by phone, or online - friends and family that I’d lost contact with.

“All of those ideas together, resulted in this very simple reflective piece about someone who has just finished a video-call with loved ones - in this case, Granny and Grandpa - to make sure they’re all right; something that we are all doing right now, all the time.”