Joy Division Celebrates 40th Anniversary Of Unknown Pleasures With Series Of New Films Throughout 2019
JOY DIVISION: UNKNOWN PLEASURES: REIMAGINED
Watch "I Remember Nothing" Now
2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the acclaimed Joy Division album Unknown Pleasures. The album was the "sound of the future" when it was released in 1979, and sounds as relevant, urgent and "from the future" here and now, as it did then.
One of the most pivotal albums ever recorded, Unknown Pleasures has influenced countless creative minds over the years and continues to be an instructive legacy that sees no end - a seemingly endless vision of Joy Division as truth and myth, as well as the continuing legacy being created by the band they morphed into: New Order.
Working together with the band, their visual coordinator Warren Jackson has commissioned 10 new films, one for each track on the album, which will present a filmic re-imagining of the music in 2019.
Collaborating with established artists and directors as well as up-and-coming filmmakers, the clips are created by those for whom Joy Division and the album Unknown Pleasures has provided sense, form and framing, a fractured influence on their own insights, art and process.
The series of videos, sound-tracked by the original Joy Division recordings, will be released over the course of 2019 beginning in June. The first video for "I Remember Nothing," directed by Helgi and Hörður is now available for viewing by going HERE.
DIRECTORS:
Sean Evans (USA)
Filmmaker, creative director and concert designer, Sean Evans (aka deadskinboy) previously directed the Grammy-nominated film "Roger Waters: The Wall" (2014) - a cinematic document of one of the most ambitious touring stage designs whose visuals and graphics were threaded with intimate and personal narratives, re-tuning and re-inventing the concert documentary genre. Evans has worked collaboratively with Roger Waters for over 10 years and has also worked with Thom Yorke and Tom Morello.
Feargal Ward and Adrian Duncan (Berlin)
Dividing his time between Ireland and Germany, Ward's award-winning work has been screened, exhibited and broadcast worldwide. He collaborates with other filmmakers and artists on projects of shared interests. Selected works: "The Soil Became Scandinavian" (2018 - EVA Art Biennial); "The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid" (2017 - Munich DokFest, Moscow Film Festival, Documenta Madrid); "The Great Wall" (2015, DoP - CPH:DOX Copenhagen, MOMA New York); "Yximalloo" (2014 - FID Marseille Prix Premier prize, Montreal Festival de Nouveau Cinema, Olhar de Cinema Brazil). Adrian Duncan is an Irish writer and artist in Berlin. His acclaimed debut novel "Love Notes from a German Building Site" will be released in the UK in October 2019.
Amos Poe (NYC)
Writer, producer and described by the New York Times as a "pioneering filmmaker", Poe is regularly referred to as the father of modern American independent cinema. A prominent exponent of the No Wave cinema movement (1975-1985, which also included Jim Jarmusch, Abel Ferrara and Richard Kern) that grew out of the music and art scene of New York's East Village. No Wave was driven by a DIY ethic, combining B-movie and Avant Garde genres to create new and vibrant American art films. Selected works: "The Blank Generation" (1975 with Ivan Krall - the first punk film, featuring Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Iggy Pop and Talking Heads); "The Foreigner" (1978 - featuring Debbie Harry); "Empire II" (2012). His film "A Walk In The Park" opened the Rome Film Festival in 2012. Amos Poe is currently painting robots.
Makato Nagahisa (Tokyo)
Film director and screenwriter, Nagahisa has made films and music videos (including Chai's "N.E.O." and Clitoric Ris's "Room Not Exposed To The Sun") while working as a creative director at Dentsu in Japan. He wrote and directed the film "And So We Put Goldfish In The Bowl" (2016), and was the first Japanese director to win the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. His first feature film - "We Are Little Zombies" (2019) received Special Mention at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as winning Sundance Film Festival's World Dramatic Special Jury Award in January, 2019. His influences include Japanese actor and director Juzo Itami, Canadian jazz orchestrator Gil Evans and French polymath Boris Vian.
Todd Hido (USA)
Originally from Kent, Ohio, and now based in San Francisco Bay Area, Todd Hido is a contemporary artist and photographer renowned for his work framing suburban America. Drawing from childhood memories as a creative well, Hido wanders endlessly, taking lengthy road trips in search of imagery that connects with his own recollections. His influences include Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen Shore, Nan Goldin and Andreas Gursky. Hido has also created campaign photography for Bottega Veneta, working with Lauren Hutton and Joan Smalls. Hido's photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Smithsonian, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has been the recipient of the Eureka Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Visual Arts Award and the Barclay Simpson Award. His work has been detailed in over 20 monographs and books, including 'Nymph Daughters' (Super Labo, 2010) and Bright Black World (Nazraeli Press, 2018).
Vincent Moon (Paris)
Vincent Moon (Mathieu Saura) is an independent French filmmaker and sound explorer. He has been making films for the previous ten years travelling around the world around with a camera and backpack on a quest for documenting sound - from stadium to rock to rare shamanic rituals, folklore and religion. He works alone or with people he finds along the unmapped way. His project "Hibridos"(with Priscilla Telmon) was a 3 year exploration of Brazil - a "trans-cinema" searching for sacred and new cults around the country. This has resulted in more than 100 short films, a feature length film, 75 digital albums, immersive video installations and live cinema performances. In 2019 he will begin the project "Hibiki," an exploration of rituals and spirituality in Japan with Atiqa Kawakami. Vincent Moon has previously worked with Arcade Fire, R.E.M. and The National.
Lynne Ramsay (UK)
Scottish film director, writer, producer and cinematographer, Ramsay is known for the feature films "Morvern Callar" (2002) - starring Samantha Morton who would go on to be similarly acclaimed for her performance as Debbie Curtis in the 2007 Ian Curtis bio-pic "Control" - "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (2011) starring Tilda Swinton, and "You Were Never Really Here" (2017) starring Joaquin Phoenix - a film which received a 7-minute stand ovation in Cannes following its premiere. Ramsay's films are considered low on dialogue and explicit story exposition, instead using images, music, and sound to create their worlds. In 1996, she won the Cannes Prix de Jury for her graduation film, and in 2013 she was selected as a member of main jury at the Cannes Film Festival. The Harvard Film Archive describes her work as "uncompromising, fascinated by the tremendous power of cinema to appeal directly to the senses and awaken new depths in our audio-visual imagination. Immersive and at times almost overwhelming." She has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh for her contribution to British film.
James Dimmock (UK/USA)
Still and motion photographer Dimmock is a lover of the film and music industries as well as a comic fanatic. He brings his interests and energy to bear on visuals that are equally dynamic and personal, creating hyper-real and super-heroic imagery. Beginning his career shooting for legendary British style magazines The Face and iD, Dimmock has gone on to work with many of film, music and sport's best talent - including Tom Cruise, U2, Daniel Craig, Radiohead, Jason Statham, Metallica and Mike Tyson - as well as shooting film and TV campaigns for Star Trek and American Gods. James Dimmock is always searching for further tattoo inspiration.
Helgi and Hörður (Iceland)
Creative duo Hörður Sveinsson and Helgi Jóhannsson combine their skills as editor and image-maker into regularly epic visualisations realised as commercial work and music video. They have worked with the Academy Award-winning singer Marketa Irglova, as well as with Sigur Ros and Yoko Ono. Their clip for "I Remember Nothing" features Iceland's leading actor Baltasar Breki Samper, who is also in the acclaimed TV drama "Chernobyl." Helgi and Hörður say they are the salt and pepper for your soup, and that they are not afraid of flying.
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