infoThe Writing In The Sand (1991)
Amber Films (Producer)
43 mins, 16mm
Colour/optical
Documentary
Available as VHS
Authorship Award Northern Electric Arts Award, 1991
Le Prix du Documentaire, Cinéma du Réel, Paris, 1992
Grand Prix City of Melbourne Award, 1992
Constructed entirely from black & white photographs, the film evokes the magic of an urban family's day out on the windswept beaches of north East England. It is packed with action, invention and surprise: bodiless heads sticking out of the sand; teenagers jumping in the sea fully clothed; family picnicking under a blanket. Memory and fantasy intermingle with expressions of intoxicating freedom and quizzical encounters with nature.
When a forewarning is ignored, a sunny daydream turns unexpectedly into a nightmare. The sea breaks into an awesome display of fury and pain, and a strange metamorphosis takes place on the shore.
Whilst celebrating the child in each of us, the film is a timely and powerful reminder of our interdependence with the natural world.
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen began to photograph on the North Eastern coast on her arrival in Newcastle in the late 1960s. Initially attracted to the extraordinary abandon with which the Northern people take to the freedom offered by their beaches, she later focused on the natural elements and transformations of the beaches as live drama in their own right. The resulting book Writing in the Sand, published in 2000, was a culmination of twenty five years of inspired photography.
An unprecedented experiment, Amber's film The Writing in the Sand is also a mammoth labour of love by its creative team. The film's 400 photographs, taken by Sirkka-Liisa over 17 years, were shot with free camera movements and married to a complex soundtrack of beach recordings, music and poetry. The result is a stirring cinematic experience.
AMBER FILMS
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration with financial assistance from Northern Arts and Channel Four Television.
REVIEWS
This irresistible evocation of the English seaside is also an outstandingly successful experiment in the integration of sound and image. The photographs of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, who has the gift of a Lartigue in capturing the elusive explosions of joie-de-vivre in everyday living, are thrillingly matched to the casual sounds of the beach, the music of Elgar and Vaughan Williams and barrel organs. The audience is swept from sentimental tears to explosive laughter. Edinburgh Film Festival
The film is an elegy as well as a celebration. Poetic, uproarious, and thunderously nostalgic, The Writing in the Sand bears the stamp of an instant British classic. The Times
Superb and at times comical, ‘The Writing in the Sand’ by Amber Films is a marvellous piece of editing from photographs… a magnificent work. Marc Joyeux, Le Soir
The most unusual contribution to the Festival was undoubtedly ‘The Writing in the Sand’ by the renowned Amber collective from Great Britain, whose speciality is the documentary feature film. Their Festival contribution earns the rating of ‘exceptional film’… A film for cinema enthusiasts. Ilona Jerger-Bachmann Natur, Das Umweltmagazin
It is a funny and moving compendium of seaside moments. The photos may have been taken over a long period but in the film they gel into a seamless, timeless record of a day at the seaside. David Whetstone, The Journal
It works magnificently… A beautifully crafted, humorous and touching piece of work by dedicated experts... A passionate plea for natural - and national – survival. Amanda Hopkinson, British Journal of Photography
The images and soundtrack are memorably warm and witty, the need to protect our precious beaches is subtly implied. Victoria Stable, FTT
The images, beautiful in themselves, are allowed to create their own meaning. Sheldon Hall, Northern Echo, 12.7.91
A brilliant photographic essay. Sao Paulo Festival 1991
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