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The Whalebone Box

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© Andrew Kotting

  • © Anonymous Bosch

    © 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

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Last updated 17th October 2019

Production Company

Andrew Kotting
45 Sensing Road
St Leonards on Sea
East Sussex
TN38 0HE
andrewbadblood@yahoo.co.uk