Maestro Breer in Norwich
December 2007
It is rare for Norwich to be visited by a living film-maker of stature, but it happened in November 2007 with the visit by Robert Breer* to take part in the Aurora Festival, ‘Possible Worlds’, held at Cinema City. This was an occasion to see twelve of his films from Form Phases IV (1954) to What Goes Up. . . (2003), and just as entertainingly, to hear his comments on each film as he introduced each one. On Saturday 10 November, he was interviewed on stage by David Curtis, the Maecenas of experimental cinema in the UK, whose book ‘A History of Artists’ Film and Video in Britain’ was published by the BFI in 2007. I have put together an essay (pdf format, 6pages) from notes I took at the time, and from other material already published.
* If you are unfamiliar with Robert Breer, there is a complete list of his films on imdb. He is usually labelled as an animator, which he most surely is, but do not thereby pigeon-hole him because his ideas about animation were, and remain, innovative ones.
