Neuro-diverse artist Eden Kötting’s remarkable drawings, paintings and collages create an illusory, animated world where the rules change and everything is possible.
Part home movie, part road movie, Kötting's riveting and eccentric film stars his 85-year-old grandmother Gladys - opinionated, bursting with anecdotes and contradictory reminiscences – and Eden, his eight-year-old daughter with Joubert syndrome, as they take a zig-zagging 6,000 mile trip in their campervan around Britain's coastline.
A deliciously eccentric, yet touching portrait of director Andrew Kotting's daughter Eden as a young woman in their tumbledown Pyrennean farmhouse. Last seen in Gallivant (1996) as a plucky kid touring the coastline of Britain with her Big Granny, Eden, now 23, is here shown painting still lifes and singing along to the radio as the seasons ebb and flow around her. Reminiscent of Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man, this lo-fi marvel features music by Scanner's Robin Rimbaud and a range of voices from Kotting's sound archive to explore notions of nostalgia, memory and place.
A documentary examining the causes and effects of Joubert syndrome – a rare hereditary brain disorder, which affects both the motor and intellectual development of its sufferers.
Filmed over the course of a week in October 2010, the film captures the everyday life of its Joubert syndrome-suffering protagonist, taking in her daily routines of work, play, and therapy, whilst also capturing her admirable joie de vivre against the backdrop of her loving family life.
Super 8 project for Coastal Currents 2017 by Hastings Film Makers and musicians. Produced by Mark French. Filmed in charity shops in Hastings & St Leonards, East Sussex UK. 1 roll of super 8 film 'everything' shot in camera. Eden wears her Jack-in-the Green costume and takes us into her inscape and hinterland.
Beginning in the pitch-black early hours of a September morning, the film follows a 14hr 17min cross-channel relay swim that I made along with my brothers Mark and Joey, a friend Ian Dale, the actor and comedian Sean Lock (Smart Alek and co-writer of This Filthy Earth) and the actor Tchili (This Filthy Earth and Ivul). The attempt was witnessed by the writer and wordsmith Iain Sinclair and is narrated by Eden Kötting. The film came about in 2006 (the 10 year anniversary since the release of the original film Gallivant) and the chance discovery of a boat called The Gallivant, which offered to shadow us across the Channel as a support vessel. Flotsam and jetsam in the form of conversations, field recordings and the voices of Gladys and Eden from the original film invade. The film shows scenes of explicit vomiting.
The work might be seen as a mash-up of the films “It's All In The Mind”, “All At Sea”, “Combat - Black Apples” and “Bouyed By The Irrelevance Of Their Own Insignificance”. Drawings and paintings by Eden Kötting and animations by Glenn Whiting. The sound includes elements by Jem Finer and Buster Grey-Jung.
Back stroke butterfly, front crawl and bras, we are awash in an ocean of bubbles. Meanwhile Captain Ahab sets sail on his magic carpet in search of the whale. All is not well in the world but Eden is there, fresh from her garden, tuning into “The Far Away Land”. We are deep in the cloud of our own making but help is at hand, and everything might yet be alright.