At the County Sessions House

At the County Sessions House until 19th. This is by the Yellow House youth arts project run by George & Gosia McKane and to be honest I was dreading it, if you set out to make an awful film you could hardly think of a better combination. Its performed and filmed by teenagers, its their interpretation of The Divine Comedy with Dante’s longing for Beatrice thrown into the mix, its unscripted, unrehearsed, they have no funding and its about 90 minutes long. But, as you’ve probably guessed, I really quite enjoyed it. It didn’t start off too well, George McKane warns us beforehand that its a brave and demanding film and sure enough the first scenes are hard going, slow and dark in monochrome and poor sound because of the echoing rooms. But that’s because we were in ‘hell’, once we surface into the brightness of the Walker gallery things move faster. Dante has a look at some of the artworks and asks for advice from a few guest poets/artists such as Levi Tafari, Bisharka Sharka and George.
Its clever the way the meeting of Dante and the lovely Beatrice is acted out in front of Henry Holiday’s painting of the scene.