Ah, Liberty!
Tuesday, March 4, 2025 at 7:30pm

361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn

Curated by Ben Rivers

Ah, Liberty!, Ben Rivers, 2008, 16mm, 19 mins
Ten Minutes Older, Herz Frank, 1978, digital projection, 10 mins
Christmas at Moose Factory, Alanis Obomsawin, 1971, digital projection, 13 mins
My Name Is Oona, Gunvor Nelson, 1969, 16mm, 10 mins
Excerpt from Mare’s Nest, Ben Rivers, 2025, digital projection

Recently I’ve been finishing a new film called Mare’s Nest, a film set in a fictional world where there are no longer adults. The kids live without governance and do what they please. Part of the reason for making this was that I wanted to experience again what I felt making a film way back in 2008 called Ah, Liberty! This film harked back to my own childhood, growing up in a small village that had a burnt-out factory and adjacent derelict homes, which, along with an old farm, the woods, and a gravel pit, was the playground for me and my friends. The Pococks, the family in the film, live a few miles up a dirt track in the Scottish Highlands, on a very isolated croft. They were very welcoming and I ended up making a film with the children, who seemed as free-range as all the different animals who roamed around the accumulated metal scrap, disused cars and machinery and nature. I made a few visits over the year, filming the children, who ranged from aged three to thirteen. My aim was to show fragments of their lives without any explanatory text—their games, imagination, joy—as well as a certain underlying sense of danger.

Part of the new film has a film within the film, possibly made by a community of children who live in caves. The movie they screen is a version of The Minotaur, where the young beast is trying to find friends, and failing by accident. Ten Minutes Older relates to this, as the children watch the magic of a puppet show with amazed faces.

I wanted to show Christmas at Moose Factory after seeing a recent, staggering exhibition of Alanis Obonsawin’s huge and deeply moving body of work, where she often collaborates with children. And finally, one of my favourite films of all time, My Name Is Oona, by Gunvor Nelson, who died on January 6 of this year.

- BR

Tickets - Pay what you can ($10 suggested donation), available at door.

Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 7pm. No entry 10 minutes after start of show.

Above: Christmas at Moose Factory