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By Our Selves

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Synopsis

By Our Selves documents a four-day walk made by the English Poet John Clare. Toby Jones, Iain Sinclair and a Straw Bear follow in his footsteps exactly 150 years after his death. En route they bump into Macgillivray, Dr Simon Kovesi and the wizard Alan Moore. Meantime the journey is narrated by Toby’s father Freddie, a maverick actor who featured in numerous David Lynch films.

John Clare's escape from Epping Forest; an epic march through hunger and madness, is an English journey to set beside 'A Pilgrim's Progress'. Andrew Kötting, hyperkinetic camper-van captain of Gallivant, sets out in hot pursuit, dressed as a Straw Bear. Father and son, Freddie and Toby Jones, are possessed by the spirit of Clare, and locked in Beckettian embrace: one all-voice and one all-mute.

The writer Iain Sinclair watches from the shadows, Alan Moore waits like a bearded figure of fate, in Northampton and Dr Simon Kovesi hands out the medicine.

Captured in lustrous black and white photography, they discover the only truth of the road; whatever our hopes and delusions, we are always By Our Selves.

Inspired by Iain Sinclair’s Edge of the Orison and John Clare’s Journey out of Essex.

Details

Year
2015
Type of film
Features
Running Time
83 mins
Format
HD, Super 8mm
Director
Andrew Kötting
Producer
Andrew Kötting, Edward Fletcher
Executive Producer
Gareth Evans
Editor
Andrew Kötting, Cliff West
Screenwriter
Andrew Kötting, Iain Sinclair
Director of Photography
Nick Gordon Smith
Sound
Philippe Ciompi
Music
Jem Finer
Principal Cast
Iain Sinclair, Freddie Jones, Toby Jones, David Aylward, Eden Kötting, Simon Kovesi, MacGillivray, Alan Moore
Voice
Macgillivray
Downside - Up rig
Tony Hill
Quadrocopter and additional aerials
Damian Daniel
Additional cast
Anne Caron Delion, Gareth Evans, Marcia Farquhar, Leila McMillan, Kristin O’Donnell, Jim Roseveare, Tom Sangster, Vigo, Andrea Luka Zimmerman

Production status

Complete

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Last updated 26th October 2015

Production Company

Andrew Kötting
Soda Pictures, http://www.sodapictures.com

Sales
Company

Soda Pictures, http://www.sodapictures.com