A Spell to Ward off the Darkness
Ben Russell, Ben Rivers
2012 - 23 min - Non spécifié - Couleur - France

A film in three parts featuring truly original writing. Filmmakers Ben Russell and Ben Rivers give us a strange, singular look at the world, in the space between proclaimed spirituality and pervading consumerism.
From pagan re-enactors to failed communes, black metal festivals to Arctic hermits, and the forever Golden Hour to the Northern Lights, A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS is an inquiry into the possibilities of a spiritual existence within an increasingly secular Western culture. A participatory ethnography in the best possible sense, A SPELL choreographs the actions of non-actors within existing Scandinavian landscapes in an effort to arrive at a hybrid document of the past, present, and future; it is a record of experience that proposes belief in transcendence as a viable outcome of living in the now.
Shot entirely on at dusk and on Super-16mm film, this work is a collaboration between two young and highly-decorated cinema artists: Ben Rivers (UK) and Ben Russell (USA). Through a mash-up of artistic sensibilities which draw from personal cinema and horror film on the one hand (Rivers) and conceptual art and Rouchian ethno-fiction on the other (Russell), this 3-part feature is the logical next step forward for both of the Ben’s. Indeed, their interests have been dovetailing towards one another for quite some time, and it is in A SPELL that their distinct brands of visionary cinema will finally come together.