MATT HULSE FILMS
Follow The Master



Feature project. Walking the 100 mile long South Downs Way. A tribute to my Grandpa who died at 96 & who loved this chalky part of England.

A bracing combination of map-reading, dogs, story-telling, philosophy, beautiful landscapes, veterinary science, Ladybird books, boozing, friends, blisters & much thrashing of the ukelele.

Pedal-powered feature film based on deaf cyclist James Duthie's journal I Cycled into the Arctic Circle. Illuminating

God Gives Nuts But He Does Not Crack Them
S8/DV 2008 6'

  Created for the Hayward Gallery exhibition 'Undercover Surrealism' from footage shot during the making of Half Life.

Winner of a 'Best Film' award.

Point Blanc
S8/DV 2005 5'

Club lost or deteriorate: 200 francs.
Stray bullet: 10 Francs.
Cock.

*
**

Commissioned by the Rotterdam International Film Festival as part of an educational project ZIEN KIJKEN FILMEN

Click here for a link to more stills.

S8 2004 2'



One of thirty 'dream films' commissioned by clothing giant DIESEL.

Home ain't sweet. Estate ain't real.

THE PLOT is an enigmatic and ground-breaking collaboration between a film-maker, a 3D digital animator and a web design team.

THE TEAM, above, from L to R: Matt Hulse, Lennart Isacsson, Garry Marshall, Lindsay Perth, Gerald Mair and Holger Mohaupt.

Created entirely in the digital domain, THE PLOT toys provocatively with 'point of view', stereotypes from horror films & role playing games.

A Blackwatch/C4 MESH Production

WATCH IT

The Sex Pistol's classic reworked for the Golden Jubilee 
in British Sign Language, featuring Samuel Dore.

Created in a 24hr period at the Filmfest Dresden

Polskie Buty
(Polish Shoes)
S8mm / Beta SP 2002 4’

God, it is said, can be found in the details.
Human character, I suspect, can be found in choice of footwear.
Here, the Poles of Wroclaw are revealed - feet first. 

Featuring music by Klaus Mittfoch, A.Dudek-Durer, Ensemble Zawsze.

Short-listed for the Saltire Society Grierson Award
(Edinburgh International Film Festival 2002)
 
Toured with the Leicester City Gallery Show 'SHOE'

‘Overheated 1991-2001: the Undiminished Intensity Mix’
S8mm / Beta SP 2001 8’

On the morning of September 11th 2001, I happened to be sitting down to edit together a single-screen work using footage and sounds from an installation that I created in 1991. Entitled Overheated (see below), the installation examined the Gulf War and its radio & TV mediation.

My aim was simply to archive the project and stick it on the shelf.

As we came to putting the finishing touches on the credits, hi-jacked jumbo jets were flown into the World Trade Centre & the Pentagon. 

This old work had been instantly framed in a new context.

History making film making history.

' ... the war is not over yet ...'
General Schwarzkopf, 1991

Included in international group show FABULA at the National Museum of Photography, Film & TV in Bradford.

"a powerful and topical reminder of the nature of American moral certitude and the rhetoric of power" (Brendan Fletcher)

Now I Am Yours
S8mm/BetaSP 2001 7'

As ever ... a past like marble ... like this garden carved in stone, this mansion, its rooms deserted now ... these still, silent, perhaps long-dead people ... still guarding the web of corridors, along which I advance to meet you, between hedgerows of faces, mask-like, watchful, indifferent ... towards you, as still you hesitate ... gazing at the entrance to this garden ... now, I am yours.

 (From Robbe-Grillet's screenplay for the Resnais film Last Year in Marienbad)

The Persistent Wave
BetaSP 2001 60'

Hotel Central
35mm 2000 10’

Winner Best Experimental Film, Mediawave 2001, Hungary

Special Award for Film
International Film & New Media Festival, Split, Croatia
( more information )

Honourable Mention, Brno 16 Film Festival, Brno, Czech Republic

Selected by Simon Field, 
Artistic Director of the Rotterdam Film Festival, 
as his favourite of the festival. 
Read his comments !

Notes from the Transmediale Tour 2000:

Hotel Central was created through a process of close collaboration between the director, the performer and the crew. There was no script. Accidents were welcomed as important tools for production, as were found objects and chance locations.

Hulse is perhaps more practical about it. "Why impose the tired old three act narrative structure on yourself? Fill a car with cameras, friends, good music and just start driving. You have to let the film in, give it space and time. Let it sing."

Visit the site of Hotel Central

Art Holiday
Hi8 Col 1998 3'

Can a genuine effort to perform 'artlessly' produce art ?

Wee Three
16mm opt B&W 1998 5’

Joint Winner Fox Searchlight Best British Short Film 
Edinburgh Film Festival 1998

Scottish Bafta New Talent Award for Best Achievement
Scottish Bafta New Talent Nomination for Best Production

Red Hot & Spicey Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival 2002

THOU SHALT NOT.

A battle between the natural authority of the body 
& the unreal demands of the adult world.

WATCH IT

Timmy
Hi8 Col 1998 20'

We won't get fooled again ...

20 years after the release of The Who's film Quadrophenia, there's a special screening & Mod Fest laid on at the Brighton Centre.

Second-time-round Mod Timmy fails to get in to any parties or pull any girls. It'll break your heart if you don't die of awkwardness first.

Masterful performance from Nick Currey.

Rough Stroopwafels
Hi8 Col 1998 60'

Psychedelic & surreal surveillance erotica.
Has never been screened in public.
And probably never will be.

Take Me Home
16mm opt B&W 1997 7’

A free-wheeling expression of irrepressible energy in the face of certain death. An epitaph for the death of celluloid, dust, scratches, physicality, nature. 

"Using coarse grained black and white stock and time-lapse techniques, Hulse pays homage to the aesthetic of the Silent Era and archive film. Only gradually do you realise that the film has been subtly digitally manipulated. As surreal and Dada-esque objects come alive, a naked man rushes through ruined architecture, dances in lonely landscapes and interacts with the film surface itself. Hulse stands at the pinnacle of a school of film makers currently working with the aesthetics of seemingly ancient black and white movies."

Sebastian Preuss, Berliner Zeitung, February 1999

"In Take Me Home, technical magician-filmmaker Matt Hulse works through multiple analogue and digital iterations, producing a wonderfully absurdist adventure of a naked man prancing through ruined architecture, landscape, and film surface. Part performance art, part film space-time perception comedy, Hulse’s piece is a delightful heir to dada cinema of Hans Richter and other early avant-gardists. Hulse shoots in super 8 mm, using time-lapse cinematography and a flashgun, creates separate digital sequences in 3-D architectural software and other editing programs; then he uses a post production software program to give the digital 3-D animation the feeling of having film grains (silver halide crystals), weaves, and scratches. He then edits the digitized super 8 mm film footage and the computer generated material back into a 16 mm black and white film. The fluidity of movement between electronic and chemical media boasts Hulse’s art-technology ambidexterity". 

Elizabeth Block, Sol Pix Reviews, March 2004

WATCH IT

Free Willy Three
S8/Beta SP 1996 2'

Try this at home. Unsupervised.

First Prize in the Open Section 
Real to Reel, Glasgow, 1996

Baked Alaska
Hi8 1996 3'

A Christmas Winter day in Wales. A brisk, naked stroll followed by a sustained pose. Set to Ben Webster's heart-warming track 'Teach Me Tonight'.

Releaser
Hi8 1996 2'

Short documentation of the making of 'Take Me Home'.

Sons of Idlevice
Hi8 1996 6'

Three men, a piano, a bugle & several ping pong balls fight off ennui in a large, cold country house.

Performed in a chicken shed near Dundee, burried neck deep in sand on a beach in Brittany and at AVE Festival in Holland.

Thanks to Steve Murgatroyd & Greg Allen.

Idlevice: a Domestic Exorcism
UMatic 1995 2'

Sights & sounds of suburban mischief.
Is this auto-eroticism or simply disco-kitchen ?
The new wave of nude rave.
Is it illegal ? Or just medieval ?

Second Prize in the Open Section 
Real to Reel, Glasgow, 1995

How I Became the Centre of the Earth
Beta SP 1995 9'

 That Kilty Feelin’
Beta SP 1994 2'

Feel the breeze.

Nationalism ? Naturism ? Naturalisation ?

Thanks to Jackie Hatfield & Greg Allen.

Sine Die
S8mm 1994 4'

Imagine a lifetime of work. Now erase it. Again & again.

This is a simple recipe for how to make SINE DIE*

Pluck one hyperactive black sheep from a broken home. Feed on diet of Lucy R. Lippard's 'Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object' (1973) for two years then bake slowly in art school. Prod occasionally with a Derek – I find Jarman’s give the best flavour  – otherwise a poke of Svankmajer will do. Add Super 8, mill by mill. Remove from heat and cool on the dole. Do not stir. Later, steep black sheep in claustrophobic crofter’s cottage on Hebridean island then - without warning - let grandma die. Frustration arises naturally on Christmas Day. Garnish with relish and let go.

*from Latin, meaning ‘adjournment without definitely fixing a day’

Super 8mm 1993 3'

As Good As a Nod
Beta SP 1991 1'

A One Minute Film commission for BBC2's 'The Late Show' & ACE.

Overheated
S8mm 1991 7'

Q: Would you have me thrown into a den of lions, so that my flesh could be ripped to shreds ... is that ... is that what you want ?

A: If it could be done on a large enough scale, sure, that sounds like a great idea.

Three simultaneous cine projections contrast images of Gulf war TV coverage with the suburban comforts of Texas. Starring George Bush Snr, Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz, John Major, Stormin' Norman & samples from Evangelist Radio Stations.

On Returning
S8mm 1990 20'

A poetic work inspired & part produced by my mother who in lived on the Isle of Mull. Derek Jarman, Jane Campion, Michael Powell are all ingredients. If forced to decide, I might consider this to be my best film, because it's direct & pure & unmannered.

I am drawn to my Mother, like some daft moth encircling the moon. I may never figure out the basis for this attraction, or what good it does me, but it is not for want of trying. Perhaps everyone should make a piece of work about their mother, or their father. If they don't know either parent, they could make a piece of fiction. Maybe sometimes it's better that way.

Thanks to Lucia Stuart, Lucy Reynolds & Daniel Devlin.

A Minimal Respect: Mexico City 1990
S8mm 1990 25'

Inspired in part by David Byrne's 'True Stories', I don a polyester suit & hang out with an air of mannered alienation in Mexico City.

With a large side order of diarrhoea.

...like a badly torn out holiday-maker from a package holiday magazine,  stuck crudely onto the culture that I find myself in...

A masterpiece of calculated self-aggrandizement that will have my grand children in hysterics. Laughing at me, not with me. If I have any grand children, that is. It's a nice film. A real film.

Things are themselves entirely 
& do not need interpretation 
only a minimal respect 
for their precise integrity.

Thanks to Lucia Stuart.

The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock
S8mm 1989 45'

Ambitious, luscious, atmospheric & at times seemingly endless adaptation of the TS Eliot poet ... but please, let's not forget ... show some respect ... this is a 45' Super 8 film with sync sound! Quite a feat.

And I have seen my head
Grown slightly bald
Brought in upon a platter

Great and sppoky performance from Andy Mackay. Thank you Toby Hulse!

Purple Rinse
S8mm 1989 6'

Performance documentation meets cross-dressing pop promo.
What energy! It is the film of a young alien.

Heaven is a Gateway
Heaven is a Tesco
Heaven is a Sainsbury
Heaven is a Co-op

S8mm Col 1988 20'

TV SCREENINGS

BBC2 - CHANNEL 4 - CANAL+ (FRANCE) - RAI  TV  (ITALY) - DRK TV (DENMARK)
SBS TV (AUSTRALIA) - SCOTTISH TELEVISION - BOB MONKHOUSE FILM SHOW (BBC CHOICE)