Clio Barnard

Dark Glass

Clio Barnard

Valerie Edmund, Jenna Russell

A psychological micro-drama that moves from the sanctuary of a domestic garden to the half-remembered shadows of a house, Clio Barnard’s Dark Glass peers back into a semi-veiled interior world of fraught, ambivalent memories. Shot on a mobile phone camera to accentuate a feeling of intimacy and immediacy, the flickering nature of the footage also emphasises the film’s uncanny, otherworldly quality.

The Arbor

Clio Barnard

Christine Bottomley, Manjinder Virk

Portrayal of the late Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar. Andrea Dunbar wrote honestly and unflinchingly about her upbringing on the notorious Buttershaw Estate in Bradford and was described as ‘a genius straight from the slums.’ When she died tragically at the age of 29 in 1990, Lorraine was just ten years old. The Arbor revisits the Buttershaw Estate where Dunbar grew up, thirty years on from her original play, telling the powerful true story of the playwright and her daughter Lorraine. Also aged 29, Lorraine had become ostracised from her mother’s family and was in prison undergoing rehab. Re-introduced to her mother’s plays and letters, the film follows Lorraine’s personal journey as she reflects on her own life and begins to understand the struggles her mother faced.

The Selfish Giant

Clio Barnard

Conner Chapman, Shaun Thomas

A hyperactive boy and his best friend, a slow-witted youth with an affinity for horses, start collecting scrap metal for a shady dealer.

Ali & Ava

Clio Barnard

Adeel Akhtar, Claire Rushbrook

Sparks fly after Ali and Ava meet through their shared affection for Sofia, the child of Ali’s tenants whom Ava teaches. Ali finds comfort in Ava’s warmth and kindness while Ava finds Ali’s complexity and humour irresistible. As the pair begin to form a deep connection they have to find a way to keep their newfound passion from being overshadowed by the stresses and struggles of their separate lives and histories.​

Dark River

Clio Barnard

Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley

After her father dies, a young woman returns to her Yorkshire village for the first time in 15 years to claim the family farm she believes is hers.

Random Acts of Intimacy

Clio Barnard

Robert Thomas Beck, Sibyl Buck

Random Acts of Intimacy is a film about brief moments of contact and sexual intimacy. It addresses notions of erotic memory, sexual fantasy, sexual desire and romantic love. It explores the possibility that sex with strangers might be the closest we get to realising current notions of romantic love - intense, passionate, impulsive.

Hermaphrodite Bikini

Clio Barnard

Jay Pee Zaccarini, Michelle Levy

Director Clio Barnard, using Harry and Paintbox techniques, intercut with a Hi-8 video diary, presents a non-narrative collage addressing sexual difference and artifice, both imagined and real.

Headcase

Clio Barnard

This is a home-movie horror film. Its heroine, Stretch, adopts a severed head as her companion and hijacks her own story to investigate it for herself and for her audience.

Road Race

Clio Barnard

A film/video installation centered on a 'buggy race', an illegal pony and trap race organised by gypsies on a motorway. The film plays with documentary and cinematic forms to address notions of artificiality and representations of the real.