The Whalebone Box
© Andrew Kotting
-
© Anonymous Bosch
Synopsis
A box made of whale bone, entangled in a fisherman’s net was washed up on a remote beach in the Outer Hebrides. Once touched the box can change lives.
The box was given to Iain Sinclair almost thirty years ago by Steve Dilworth, a sculptor based on the Island of Harris. It was always intended to be an active thing, kill or cure. An animal battery. And part of the power of the crafted box comes from its lack of signature. At best this object has the anonymity and moral authority of tribal art, of a fetish, a relic or an accidental survivor. It is dangerous. What is inside might produce good magic or it might produce bad magic but like the box that contained Schrödinger’s Cat it must never to be opened.
In 2018 the box was taken on an 800 mile reverse pilgrimage from London back to the Isle of Harris, in the company of the filmmaker Andrew Kötting, the photographer Anonymous Bosch and the writer Iain Sinclair. There was unwellness on the island and they hoped that the box might help, however little did they know the delirium that they would unleash.
And all the while Eden Kötting narrates the story, working as both muse and soothsayer. She tries to make sense of the journey as it unfolds, sometimes awake and sometimes in deep sleep. Ultimately the whalebone box is finally buried in the sand on the very beach from which it came all those ever-so-many years ago BUT something happens at the very end of the film after the credits have finished rolling, something extraordinary and miraculous….
Official Selection FID Marseilles 2019 - World premiere
Details
- Year
- 2019
- Type of film
- Features
- Running Time
- 84 mins
- Format
- Super 8 16mm HD
- Director
- Andrew Kotting
- Producer
- Andrew Kotting
- Executive Producer
- Jason Wood
- Editor
- Andrew Kotting
- Screenwriter
- Andrew Kotting
- Director of Photography
- Anonymous Bosch - Nick Gordon Smith
- Production Designer
- Andrew Kotting
- Sound
- Andrew Kotting
- Music
- David Bloor, Ollie Cherer, MacGillivray
- Principal Cast
- Eden Kotting, Iain Sinclair, Philip Hoare, MacGillivray
- Animations
- Isabel Skinner
- Pinhole Photographs
- Anonymous Bosch
Production status
Complete
Please let us know if we need to make any amendments to this Film entry mailing us directly at
Last updated 17th October 2019
