hope holds up her head

HOPE HOLDS UP HER HEAD AND HOPES
A FILM BY ANDREW KÖTTING
Commissioned through FUTURE SCREENS NI & Ulster University.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
PAUL MOORE
PRODUCTION MANAGER – NORTHERN IRELAND
TERESA KANE
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT - NORTHERN IRELAND
KRISITIN O’DONNELL
ULSTER UNIVERSITY COORDINATOR
CAROLINE HARKIN
WITH
EDEN KÖTTING
CHARLIE STEPHENS
NEVILLE JERMYN
MICHELLE ROBERTS
BOB HUMM
CLAIRE HUMM
CHRIS BROUGHTON
LORNA CRABBE
IVY BROUGHTON CRABBE
BECKI LANE
LEILA MCMILLAN
JENNY ROBERTS

WHITE COATS AND RUNNERS IN NORTHERN IRELAND
BEN COPES
CARENZA GAMBLE
SZENTLÉLEKI GELLÉRT
MAYA KELLY
JUDE MCAULEY-SMINCAK
LIBBY MCDONALD
LAUREN MCAULEY
ADAM MILLIGAN
JONNY ROGERS

RESIDENTS OF BROOKLANDS CARE HOME KILKEEL
EDNA MCCLUNG
DAVID MCCORMICK
LILY MCKNIGHT
SYLVIA OLIVER
MARY ROCKS
MALCOLM SHILLIDAY
NORA SMITH

SCRIPT – WORDS
ANDREW KÖTTING
MARY WILD

CAMERAS

NICK GORDON SMITH
ANONYMOUS BOSCH
TIM CORRIGAN
ALAN CROSS
ANDREW KÖTTING
EDEL O’MAHONY

DIGITAL PINHOLE CAMERAS
ANONYMOUS BOSCH

DRONES
ANDY YOONG - NORTHERN IRELAND
ALAN CROSS - ENGLAND

3D MODELLING & ANIMATION
ISABELLE SKINNER

EDIT & SOUND DESIGN
ANDREW KÖTTING

VOICES
EDEN KÖTTING
MARY WILD
CLAUDIA BARTON

MUSIC – SOUNDS
DAVID BLOOR
DIRCH BLEWN
CLAUDIA BARTON

AFTER FX - TEXTS
ZEROH

COLOUR GRADE
ALAN CROSS

FACTORY LOCATION
KEITH HARDING

WITH THANKS TO
JAN MCMILLAN
MARK FRENCH
ALNOOR DEWSHI
NICK JOHNSON
PAT SEAMAN
SAM SHARPLES
PAUL PRINTER
JIM LEDWITH
RAYMOND SHANNON
CLIO BARNARD
GED BRYAN
ANTHONY DEVLIN & ALL AT THE SILENT VALLEY RESERVOIR
ALL AT PROJECT ARTWORKS
GERARD DUNLEAVY
SHELBOURNE VEHICLE RENTAL

EDEN’S SUPPORT TEAM
HAZEL JAMES
RACHEL MCCARRON
JEMMA, GRA, BEL & LUCAS TILLER
JEMMA MILLARD
BECI LANE
CAROL LUSCOMBE
THERESA CARUNA
ALBERTINE KÖTTING-MCMILLAN

SHORT SYNOPSIS

Hope Holds Up Her Head And Hopes is an experimental short film that hovers above the make-believe world of hope. The film-maker’s daughter Eden, dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of OZ takes us on a journey from The Factory to The Silent Valley. Accompanied by a ragtag gaggle of folkloricists and workers in white coats the journey ends in The Toilet of Hope.

LONG SYNOPSIS & NOTES

Hope Holds Up Her Head And Hopes is an experimental short film that is a component part of a gallery installation that is designed to run on a loop with other artworks in situ.

However it can also be experienced as a short film that dives into the murky waters of hope. The film-maker’s daughter Eden, dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of OZ walks a path of recollection but she does not walk alone.

Working again with his daughter Eden, ‘star’ of GALLIVANT, THIS OUR STILL LIFE & THE WHALEBONE BOX, the artist and film-maker explores notions of hope. Eden and her colleagues from the Project Artworks collective; Charlie, Michelle and Neville ferry fragments of meaning throughout the film which are occasionally translated by The Makaton Tutor, Becki. Mary wild

Intermittently a gaggle of folkloricists, resplendent in their own hand-made costumes pop up to confuse and beguile. And then there is the factory, which sets about the business of manufacturing hope….

The film navigates the thin membrane between fiction and documentary whilst all the while celebrating other ways of being….

ARK BIOGRAPHY 100 words.

Andrew Kötting trained at the Slade School of Art in London, specialising in performance and film. He is a Professor of Time Based Media at UCA, Canterbury.

To date he has made eight independent feature films Gallivant, This Filthy Earth, Ivul, This Our Still Life, Swandown, By Our Selves, Edith Walks and Lek And The Dogs and The Whalebone Box.

He presently resides by the sea in St Leonards and continues to collaborate with his daughter Eden on short films, performances and exhibitions and in 2023-2025 their touring VR Project The Tell Tale Rooms.

ERK BIOGRAPHY 100 words.

Eden Kötting was born in 1988 with a rare genetic disorder; Joubert Syndrome. In 1996 she appeared in her father’s experimental feature film Gallivant along with her Great Grandmother Gladys. Eden has collaborated with her father Andrew on numerous multi-media art projects, which include feature-films, exhibitions, installations, performances and bookworks.

Eden is also part of the Project Artworks collective who were nominated for The Turner Prize in 2021. She continues to share a studio with her father in St Leonards-on-Sea where they recently completed a VR project; The Tell-Tale Rooms.

ARK BIOGRAPHY 250 words.

Andrew Kötting was born in Elmstead Woods and went on to become a lumberjack in the forests of the French Pyrenees. He trained at the Slade School of Art in London with Stuart Brisley, specialising in performance and film. He then went on to teach as a part-time Senior Lecturer at KIAD in Maidstone before becoming a Professor of Time Based Media at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA).

He was shortlisted for the first ever Jarman Award and in 2003 he was awarded an AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts. He has delivered Masterclasses and Keynote speeches across the globe, from Stanford University, Aberystwyth University, Glasgow University, The John Huston Film School, The RCA and Goldsmiths London, Le Fresnoy France, Cinema Nova Brussels, Sydney Film Festival in Australia and St John’s College Oxford.

His thirty year oeuvre has moved from early live-art inflected, often absurdist performance pieces, through to darkly comic short films that take biography, landscape and journeys as springboards into the making of visually striking and structurally inventive enquiries into identity, belonging, history and notions of the folkloric.

To date he has made ten independent feature films:
Gallivant, This Filthy Earth, Ivul, This Our Still Life, Swandown, By Our Selves, Edith Walks, Lek And The Dogs and The Whalebone Box with The Memory Blocks currently in post-production.

ERK BIOGRAPHY 250 words.

Eden Kötting was born in 1988 with a rare genetic disorder; Joubert Syndrome. She grew up in London and developed a keen interest in drawing and painting. In 1996 she appeared in her father’s experimental feature film Gallivant along with her Great Grandmother Gladys. She had her first solo exhibition in Evelyn Street, Deptford in 1999. In 2002 she collaborated with Dr Mark Lythgoe, Giles Lane and Andrew Kötting on the multi-media SciArt project Mapping Perception.

In 2005 she moved to St Leonards-on-Sea and attended 6th Form College at Glyne Gap where she further developed her drawing and painting skills. In 2006 her work was chosen to be part of a group show at Tate Modern organised by Project Artworks (an artist led collective that works with people who have complex needs who have recently been nominated for the Turner Prize, 2021).

Eden continues to collaborate with her father Andrew on numerous multi-media art projects, which include exhibitions, installations, performances and bookworks. In 2015 they also collaborated with the animator Glenn Whiting, which has since seen the production of numerous short films commissioned by Channel 4 Random Acts, HOME in Manchester and most recently The BFI for their short film Diseased & Disorderly.

Eden is presently part of the Wednesday Mentoring Group at Project Artworks and shares a studio with her father in St Leonards-on-Sea where they further develop their VR project; The Tell-Tale Rooms.