Calliope News
Mark Kidel’s “Soweto Strings” has been shown several times to great critical acclaim on BBC4 during 2008, It has been sold to a number of TV companies around the world and will be included, along with an 80-minute concert film of the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble, in a DVD which will be released before the end of the year. Parts of the concert film may also be available for download.
“Soweto Strings” has been nominated for a 2008 Grierson Best Arts Documentary Award. This is especially good news following the Best History Documentary Grierson Award won last year for “Hungary 1956: Our Revolution”
Mark has embarked on a major film about the relationship between pianist Alfred Brendel and his pupil the prodigy Kit Armstrong. The film will follow them both over a two year period, and focuses on Brendel’s retirement from public performance and the coming age of Kit Armstrong. The film will include exclusive footage of Alfred Brendel playing his last recital in the UK in July 2008. The film is being supported by the distributors Artifical Eye, ZDF ARTE and a number of European TV channels.
Mark’s feature-length film on Sly and the Family Stone is progressing well and has received development support from the BBC’s “Storyville” documentary series. Production on the film should start in the course of 2009. After two years slow diplomatic work, Mark was able to meet the reclusive artist in LA, and Sly is behind the project. US production company Hour One (Alexandra Parker and Adam Pincus) are co-producing the film with Calliope Media.
ARTE France have financed the further development of an adventurous exploration of documentary and dramatic historical narrative around the case of Lady Susan Lincoln, who was treated for a serious psychological and physical illness in Paris in 1837, and who is the subject of an international research project based in France. The first draft of the script will be delivered in November 2008.
Mark’s performance film with pianist Leon Fleisher was shown on ARTE France on 26 September 2008. There will be a screening of the film at the Curzon Mayfair Cinema on 15 November, along with the multi-ward winning documentary “Lessons of a Master” which Mark made about Leon in 2001.
“Something Rich and Strange”, Mark’s prize-winning film about the composer Iannis Xenakis should be released as a DVD soon on Mode.
Mark Kidel is continuing to work on film documentation of the work in Medical Humanities at the Peninsula Medical School in Cornwall. This work has been supported by South West Screen and the Medical School.
