FEATURE: Dan Carrier previews one of the highlights of Open City Docs Festival which starts next week
Published: 14 June, 2012
by DAN CARRIER
Isambard Kingdom Brunel is known for his soaring works of engineering, his beautiful, practical structures that are reminders of the heyday of the UK being the “workshop of the world”.
His legacy, and how engineering is considered today, is discussed in a film due to be screened at the Open City Docs Festival.
Starting next week and based at the University College London campus in Bloomsbury, The Fall of the Engineer describes how the profession was seen from industrial Victorian times to the post-war period as saviours of society, experts who could help build a better Britain.
The film is an amalgum of excerpts from movies that celebrate engineering, including scenes from The Dambusters, Flight of the Phoenix and Das Boot. But, as this film reveals, engineers have fallen from grace, and to discuss way the festival has a panel to consider where we go next.
It includes former chairman of the UK Engineering Council Sir Alan Rudge, engineer Kate Bellingham, UCL’s Mark Miodownik and Radio 4’s Quentin Cooper.
Festival programmer Michael Stewart, a UCL academic, set up the series last year.
“He was a 19th century pin-up for boys,” he says of Brunel. “He made engineering groovy – but today the engineer is seen more as a mechanic who facilitates the designs of others.”
There has long been a gap in the film festival market for a strong documentary series in London, says Michael.
He cites Sheffield as the only real premier documentary festival in the UK – and that is primarily aimed at film buffs. “London lends itself to this because has a really diverse audience,” he says.
The decision to tie it in with the University of London – where Michael teaches anthropology – means there is a wide range of people who attend.
“It makes for lively post-screening discussions,” he says. “It means it is not just with film makers, but people who have an expertise and interest in a certain area. It is not just an audience of cinema specialists. We want to mix niche audiences. We have science films, observation films, nature films – and we want to mix all these genres of documentary together and show them in one place.”
Watching the scores of entries in to the festival and choosing ones to show takes time: Michael has a team of 25 on the committee. Each film is seen twice and then a report is drawn up.
Some of the committee members are UCL students studying film. “You are looking for that moment where you go ‘Wow! I don’t believe it’,” says Michael. “We want films that work, that move you, that are eminently engaging,” he says. “We find films that are simply beautiful exponents of the world around us. Others are just as important, though perhaps not as artistic. There is a shared sense of the aesthetic amongst the programmers and the programme is very eclectic. We live in a city where there is high quality journalism and high quality documentary makers, and we hope to showcase that.
“I want people to leave the cinema thinking: isn’t it great to be a human!”
Michael hopes to stimulate debate through the 100 films chosen. “We have programmed areas that we have quite deliberately chosen to stimulate public discussion,” he says.
One example is the section known as Science Frictions, that considers our relationship with science. “It causes lots of anxiety,” he says. “It shows how science can challenge us.”
From electro-shock therapy to freezing eggs, from training monkeys to a film about a life long love and the trouble with dealing with dementia, the Science Friction programme is designed to prompt discussion.
One film studies the world of Tom Spicer. He has a form of autism, and has long expressed a mantra to his siblings William and Kate, who happen to be a film-maker and journalist, of his wish to meet the drummer of rock band Metallica, Lars Ulrich.
The crux of the film is how Tom’s siblings try to make his dream come true. “It asks if we care enough about the people around us,” says Michael. “Essentially it is about what it takes to be a good person.”
• The Fall of the Engineer event takes place on Sunday June 24 at 2.15pm
• Open City Doc Fest runs from June 21-24. Films are screened in and around University College London and a Festival Tent in Torrington Square, WC1. Full details at www.opencitydocsfest.com
• As part of the festival, a screening of the film Barbaric Genius from director Paul Duane will be shown at the Darwin Theatre, Gower Street, on Friday June 22 at 5.45pm. The film tells the story of Kentish Town street-drinker and chessmaster John Healy, who takes part in a Q&A session afterwards.