A poetic exploration of an excitingly unknown and highly inspiring universe. As we accompany the Australian artist around the globe, Helen Britton’s incredible attention to material and detail teaches us that the closer we look at things, the more they have to tell us.
"Hunter from Elsewhere is an astonishing film because it tells stories about telling stories and in its slightly melancholic mood deals irretrievably with the past and yet is completely in the here and now."
Julie Metzdorf, Bayerischer Rundfunk
"Helen Britton and Elena Alvarez Lutz are alchemists who transform our view of the seemingly worthless."
Dunja Bialas, Artechock
"Filmmaker Elena Alvarez Lutz shares jewellery artist Helen Britton’s fascinations with us in a beautiful portrait filmed in Germany and Australia. The journey brings us to unexpected places like mines, industrial areas, souvenir shops, old factories, and the ocean where Helen finds beauty and inspiration in the smallest details of human activity and nature."
Liesbeth Den Besten, Art historian & curator
"Never intrusive, but finely observed – an almost tactile approach to a fascinating woman and her practice. You follow Britton as she explores materials – which at times feels like archaeology, delving into industrial relics as much as her own life. From what jewellery works become a form of condensed, transformed memory.”
Thomas Willmann, Münchner Merkur
For screenings/booking/billing please contact
W-FILM Distribution
Gotenring 4
50679 Köln
Germany
Tel.: +49.221.222 19 91
mail@wfilm.de
www.wfilm.de
Festivals
2023
June:
Jerusalem: Jerusalem Cinematheque Bavarian Film Week, Tuesday, June 27th, 8:30 pm
Berkshire: BIFF Berkshire International Film Festival, Friday, June 2nd, 10 am
May:
Melbourne: Melbourne Design Week Film Festival, Saturday, May 20th, 2 pm at the Capital & Sunday, May 28th, 4 pm at the Classic Cinemas
March:
Munich: Schmuck München, March 10th
February:
Melbourne: The Kino, 45 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC, Saturday 4th Feb, 4 pm
Manchester: Unitx / Manchester School of Art, Benzie & Chatham
2022
December:
Murnau: Über Kurz oder Lang - Filmfestival, Westtorhalle, 28.12.2022
November:
Nuremberg: Filmhaus Kino, 10.11.
New York City: REEL Jewels Filmfestival, New York City Jewelry Week 2022, Tuesday, November 15th, Marlene Meyerson Jewish Community Center
Generously sponsored by the German Consulate General in New York
U.K. Cope Auditorium, Loughborough University, 30.11.2022, 6:30 pm
Synopsis
A shiny blue bird in a thorny thicket of dark silver, stone drops falling from a metal cloud, a ghost train loaded with mysterious treasure – Australian artist Helen Britton’s pieces seem to emerge from some forgotten Wunderkammer. And yet her art is modern, avant-garde jewelry, sculptures and drawings, admired and collected around the world.
The film follows her stalking through the German outback, seeking out abandoned workshops, forgotten artisans and manufacturing processes vanishing in time. Visiting the heavy industry sites of her Australian childhood in Newcastle NSW, stone carvers in Idar-Oberstein and glassblowers in Thuringia, we reach her Munich studio, where the artist amalgamates her capture, memories, and precious materials into timeless miniature sculptures.
Beyond a simple portrait, the film is a poetic, essayistic approach to a rarely documented creative genre and a subjective narration of a relationship between the protagonist, her work and the filmmaker. Filmed over a four-year period, it is a reflection on art, memories and storytelling, with insightful interviews with the artists friends and colleagues.
The soundtrack includes indie electronic pieces by German cult bands like The Notwist, Driftmachine, Radio Citizen, Sasebo and Mount Hush.
"While the components themselves are in the form of the cheapest trinket,
the sentiment that they intend to convey reaches into the deepest abyss”.
Helen Britton
Director's Note
I met Helen Britton about twenty years ago, at Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts, where she was a guest student in Otto Künzli’s goldsmith class. I was sitting on the jury for the competition “Film and Jewelry”. We screened a film, and the students had 48 hours to interpret it as jewelry. I clearly recall Helen’s object: She had sawed a hollow brooch from the handle of a toothbrush – rendering the essence of the film’s love story. The colored fragment shifting back and forth within the handle elicited in me a sensation of pain. I thought: how can a simple object rise such feelings?
Over the years, I have followed Helen’s development in Munich, the worldwide center of contemporary avant-garde jewelry. In my encounters with many other jewelry artists, I have reflected on what makes jewelry so existential – beyond its material value. What imbues a ring with significance? What lends one’s grandfather’s chain, one’s mother’s earrings their meaning? What motivates international jewelry collectors on their hunt around the globe?
Jewelry comes alive only when it is worn – when it becomes a talisman, a messenger from another world. Jewelry speaks a universal language – in every culture, in every family, for each human being. It involves rituals, the body, space. Jewelry developed parallel to spoken languages - speaks of love, respect, and is above all: communication.
Film stills
Film Data
97 min, color, HD, 16:9, 25p, Dolby 5.1,
English & German, OV; German + Engl. subtitles
Germany 2021
ochobarcos / eightboats filmproduction
www.ochobarcos.de
A film by Elena Alvarez Lutz (BVR)
Cinematography by Lilli-Rose Pongratz, Stefan Brainbauer, Robin Worms, Elena Alvarez Lutz (BVR)
Edited by Nina Ergang, (BFS)
Narrated by Leoncia Flynn
English translation, collaboration & subtitles by Lonnie Legg
Sound design by Joshua Lilienthal
Re-Recording mixing by Daniel Bautista
Re-recording mixing supervision by Tschangis Chahrokh
Data wrangling by Felix Länge
Credits by Felix Walser
Color grading & DCP by Bernd Gareis
Music by The Notwist, Driftmachine, Mount Hush, Sasebo, Radio Citizen, Sound Voyage, Exlex
Graphic Design by Paul Bowler
Featuring Helen Britton, Julia Wild, Katie Scott, Dianne Beevers, Jill Stowell, Carlier Makigawa, John Parkes, Atty Tantivit, Corinna Theresa Brix, Dirk Eisel, Harald Wild, Karl-Dieter Braun, Ted Snell, Ernstotto Biehl, Nola May Farman, David Bielander, Ayaka Terajima, Takajoshi Terajima, Felix Lindner, Jens Ströher
This project was supported by:
Press
Gallery
A poetic exploration of an excitingly unknown and highly inspiring universe. As we accompany the Australian artist around the globe, Helen Britton’s incredible attention to material and detail teaches us that the closer we look at things, the more they have to tell us.
"Hunter from Elsewhere is an astonishing film because it tells stories about telling stories and in its slightly melancholic mood deals irretrievably with the past and yet is completely in the here and now."
Julie Metzdorf, Bayerischer Rundfunk
"Helen Britton and Elena Alvarez Lutz are alchemists who transform our view of the seemingly worthless."
Dunja Bialas, Artechock
"Filmmaker Elena Alvarez Lutz shares jewellery artist Helen Britton’s fascinations with us in a beautiful portrait filmed in Germany and Australia. The journey brings us to unexpected places like mines, industrial areas, souvenir shops, old factories, and the ocean where Helen finds beauty and inspiration in the smallest details of human activity and nature."
Liesbeth Den Besten, Art historian & curator
"Never intrusive, but finely observed – an almost tactile approach to a fascinating woman and her practice. You follow Britton as she explores materials – which at times feels like archaeology, delving into industrial relics as much as her own life. From what jewellery works become a form of condensed, transformed memory.”
Thomas Willmann, Münchner Merkur
Trailer
For screenings/booking/billing please contact
W-FILM Distribution
Gotenring 4
50679 Köln
Germany
Tel.: +49.221.222 19 91
mail@wfilm.de
www.wfilm.de
Synopsis
A shiny blue bird in a thorny thicket of dark silver, stone drops falling from a metal cloud, a ghost train loaded with mysterious treasure – Australian artist Helen Britton’s pieces seem to emerge from some forgotten Wunderkammer. And yet her art is modern, avant-garde jewelry, sculptures and drawings, admired and collected around the world.
The film follows her stalking through the German outback, seeking out abandoned workshops, forgotten artisans and manufacturing processes vanishing in time. Visiting the heavy industry sites of her Australian childhood in Newcastle NSW, stone carvers in Idar-Oberstein and glassblowers in Thuringia, we reach her Munich studio, where the artist amalgamates her capture, memories, and precious materials into timeless miniature sculptures.
Beyond a simple portrait, the film is a poetic, essayistic approach to a rarely documented creative genre and a subjective narration of a relationship between the protagonist, her work and the filmmaker. Filmed over a four-year period, it is a reflection on art, memories and storytelling, with insightful interviews with the artists friends and colleagues.
The soundtrack includes indie electronic pieces by German cult bands like The Notwist, Driftmachine, Radio Citizen, Sasebo and Mount Hush.
"While the components themselves are in the form of the cheapest trinket,
the sentiment that they intend to convey reaches into the deepest abyss”.
Helen Britton
Director's Note
I met Helen Britton about twenty years ago, at Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts, where she was a guest student in Otto Künzli’s goldsmith class. I was sitting on the jury for the competition “Film and Jewelry”. We screened a film, and the students had 48 hours to interpret it as jewelry. I clearly recall Helen’s object: She had sawed a hollow brooch from the handle of a toothbrush – rendering the essence of the film’s love story. The colored fragment shifting back and forth within the handle elicited in me a sensation of pain. I thought: how can a simple object rise such feelings?
Over the years, I have followed Helen’s development in Munich, the worldwide center of contemporary avant-garde jewelry. In my encounters with many other jewelry artists, I have reflected on what makes jewelry so existential – beyond its material value. What imbues a ring with significance? What lends one’s grandfather’s chain, one’s mother’s earrings their meaning? What motivates international jewelry collectors on their hunt around the globe?
Jewelry comes alive only when it is worn – when it becomes a talisman, a messenger from another world. Jewelry speaks a universal language – in every culture, in every family, for each human being. It involves rituals, the body, space. Jewelry developed parallel to spoken languages - speaks of love, respect, and is above all: communication.
Festivals
2023
June:
Jerusalem: Jerusalem Cinematheque Bavarian Film Week, Tuesday, June 27th, 8:30 pm
Berkshire: BIFF Berkshire International Film Festival, Friday, June 2nd, 10 am
May:
Melbourne: Melbourne Design Week Film Festival, Saturday, May 20th, 2 pm at the Capital & Sunday, May 28th, 4 pm at the Classic Cinemas
March:
Munich: Schmuck München, March 10th
February:
Melbourne: The Kino, 45 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC, Saturday 4th Feb, 4 pm
Manchester: Unitx / Manchester School of Art, Benzie & Chatham
2022
December:
Murnau: Über Kurz oder Lang - Filmfestival, Westtorhalle, 28.12.2022
November:
Nuremberg: Filmhaus Kino, 10.11.
New York City: REEL Jewels Filmfestival, New York City Jewelry Week 2022, Tuesday, November 15th, Marlene Meyerson Jewish Community Center
Generously sponsored by the German Consulate General in New York
U.K. Cope Auditorium, Loughborough University, 30.11.2022, 6:30 pm
Film Data
97 min, color, HD, 16:9, 25p, Dolby 5.1,
English & German, OV; German + Engl. subtitles
Germany 2021
ochobarcos / eightboats filmproduction
www.ochobarcos.de
A film by Elena Alvarez Lutz (BVR)
Cinematography by Lilli-Rose Pongratz, Stefan Brainbauer, Robin Worms, Elena Alvarez Lutz (BVR)
Edited by Nina Ergang, (BFS)
Narrated by Leoncia Flynn
English translation, collaboration & subtitles by Lonnie Legg
Sound design by Joshua Lilienthal
Re-Recording mixing by Daniel Bautista
Re-recording mixing supervision by Tschangis Chahrokh
Data wrangling by Felix Länge
Credits by Felix Walser
Color grading & DCP by Bernd Gareis
Music by The Notwist, Driftmachine, Mount Hush, Sasebo, Radio Citizen, Sound Voyage, Exlex
Graphic Design by Paul Bowler
Featuring Helen Britton, Julia Wild, Katie Scott, Dianne Beevers, Jill Stowell, Carlier Makigawa, John Parkes, Atty Tantivit, Corinna Theresa Brix, Dirk Eisel, Harald Wild, Karl-Dieter Braun, Ted Snell, Ernstotto Biehl, Nola May Farman, David Bielander, Ayaka Terajima, Takajoshi Terajima, Felix Lindner, Jens Ströher
This project was supported by:
Press
Gallery
