The Blue Summer

Synopsis

Described by The Independent as a "millennial British version of Chris Marker's Sunless", Blue Summer is an experimental film about the doomed love affair between a writer and his conceptual artist lover. An unseen narrator guides us through the story, describing how he unearthed a pile of letters and fragments of a novel in an abandoned trailer in the countryside. Slowly, these fragments come to life, revealing how the writer's paranoid fantasies provoke a psychological meltdown.

Exploring a number of contemporary concerns - the media, modern art, digitalisation, modernism, ecology - the film experiments with filmic genres and uses image and sound to mirror the writer's descent into madness. Writer-director John Sergeant, who has made over 30 documentaries for both the BBC and Channel 4, shot the film over five years on a tiny budget. "I wanted to make a film on my own terms rather than going through the commissioning process, which I know can completely change a writer-director's original idea," says Sergeant.
 
That uncompromising approach has won the film fans around the world. Following its premiere at last year's Sheffield International Documentary Festival, it was invited to London, Rotterdam, Zanzibar and Ankara, and has also enjoyed special screenings at arthouse cinemas around the UK, all as a result of word of mouth.

Details

Year

2000

Type of film

Features

Running Time

2 hrs 5 mins

Format

Betacam Sp, DigiBeta

Director

John Sergeant

Producer

John Sergeant

Executive Producer

John Sergeant

Director of Photography

John Sergeant

Sound

John Sergeant

Principal Cast

Nicola Walker, Barney Kaye

Genre

Production status

Complete

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Last updated 26th November 2005