R. Enstone

NEW DOCS

When Richard Enstone died, he left behind a box containing 89 rolls of Super 8 film from the 1980s. It would be difficult to imagine a more unusual archive of personal documentation. Some of the footage is conventional home movie subject matter handled in unremarkable style: a portrait of his mother, a parade, touristy bits taken on day trips to a variety of locales. But he also shot pages of his journal one frame at a time, as if with a spy camera, and recorded obfuscating sound tracks at different speeds on the second magnetic track available on Super 8 sound film. This short documentary reveals Enstone’s painful private paranoia but carefully balances that sensational material with a levelheaded (but not too probing) effort to understand him as a person. The result is all the more creepy for being fair and respectful.  TW

Director

James Varley

Producers

Kate Moore, Katie Hefford, Sam Cunningham, Simon Waldron, Emma Greaves

Editor

James Varley

Release Year

2014

Festival Year

2015

Country

United Kingdom

Run Time

15 minutes

Premiere

North American Premiere