27/01/2022

Still from the film ‘I’ll be Back’ showing a hand presenting a preserved insect.
Hope Strickland, still from: I’ll Be Back! (2022)

Artist filmmaker and CREAM PhD researcher Hope Strickland, has two films screening at this year’s London Short Film Festival (LSFF).

If I Could Name You Myself (I Would Hold You Forever) (2021) is part of a special screening curated by TAPE Collective on the theme of motherhood. The film explores herbal resistance and reproductive agency, specifically looking at cotton root bark as an abortifacient for creole women during slavery.  

Hope Strickland, still from: If I Could Name You Myself (2021)

I’ll Be Back! (2022) is in the UK Competition as part of a programme titled ‘Soil, The Great Leveller’. The film begins and ends with the story of the rebel slave Francois Mackandal. In 1758, Mackandal was condemned to be burned at the stake, not only for his crimes but for his radical powers of metamorphosis. Filmed in archives and museums across the UK, I’ll Be Back! explores a series of collections holding objects of colonial violence. In doing so, it seeks to interrogate institutional collecting practices and the distances between myth, fabulation and machinations of power.  

Hope Strickland, still from: I’ll Be Back! (2022)

“I’m very happy to be screening two films at this year’s LSFF! I’ll Be Back!, in particular, feels pivotal to the way my practice is developing. It begins an approach to filmmaking that seeks to unpick the temporal fractures that become evident when positioning work across 16mm, digital and archival practices. I hope to explore further ideas around marronage, fugitivity and diasporic landscapes in my PhD work”. – Hope Strickland

Now in its 20th year, LSFF is an internationally recognised, independent short film festival, held in cinema venues across London.