Keeping Time (1983)
A film about mother daughter relationships and a dancing school in North Shields, which led to Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s later book and exhibition Step by Step.
An early experiment for Amber, blending drama, documentary footage and still photographs in a continuous narrative, it follows and fictionalises a young dancer’s life from the age of seven to seventeen. The filmmakers were introduced to the Connell-Brown dance school in North Shields when making Tyne Lives. Other Amber photo films developed out of Konttinen’s work include Byker (1983), The Writing in the Sand (1991), Letters to Katja (1994), Today I’m With You (2010) and Song for Billy (2016).
Amber Films, 57 mins, 1983
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