On January 15th 7:30 PM „Meno avilys“ Cinematheque will host an event titled “Margaret Tait’s Notebooks”, curated by the “Cinézine” film club.
This event, dedicated to the work of Margaret Tait, reflects upon the relationship between text in cinema and, conversely, cinema in literature. Born in Scotland, Tait spent her entire life making films and writing poetry; consequently, a poetic logic permeates her cinematic recordings of everyday life, while her written texts often contain scenes from unrealised film scripts. The curatorial concept of this programme was inspired by Margaret Tait’s book “Personae” (ed. Sarah Neely)—a publication that departs from the conventions of the standard memoir, combining autofiction with notebook pages and photographs from Tait’s personal archive.
The dissolution of boundaries between the personal, creative, and professional spheres is emblematic of Margaret Tait’s overall artistic style and working process. Lacking official recognition, she worked on the margins of the film industry, financing her films with her own and her family’s resources. These circumstances shaped her distinctive approach to the moving image. As she herself described it, what mattered to her was “to breathe with the camera,” to look at the smaller, everyday aspects of life with curiosity and care.
The film programme will be preceded by a short reading of Margaret Tait’s texts and poetry.
Programme:
- “A Portrait of Ga” (1952, 4 min)
- “Where I am is Here” (1964, 32 min)
- “Aerial” (1974, 4 min)
- “Color Poems” (1974, 10 min)
- “Tailpiece” (1976, 10 min)
Duration: 60 min.
The films are screened in their original language (English) with Lithuanian subtitles.
“Cinézine” is a freely moving film club dedicated to screenings of moving-image works, video art, and artists’ films, followed by informal discussions. The initiative was born out of a desire to bring together film viewers and enthusiasts, creating informal gatherings open to surprises. The film club is organised by Ugnė Balsytė, Aušra Umbrasaitė, and Milda Valiulytė.
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Margaret Tait—a filmmaker, writer, and poet. She was born in 1918 in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, and studied medicine in Edinburgh. During the Second World War, she served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in India, Sri Lanka, and Malaya. After the war, she studied film in Rome, and upon returning to Scotland, co-founded the film company “Ancona Films”, where she began making short experimental films. Over the course of 25 years of uninterrupted work, Margaret Tait produced 32 short films and one feature-length film, gradually developing a distinctive poetic style. Her camera most often turned toward her immediate surroundings: portraits of family members, interiors of her home and studio, and the streets she lived on in Edinburgh and in her native Orkney. She composed her films according to a personal poetic logic, at times rhythmically setting image and sound against one another, and incorporating excerpts from her own writing and that of other poets. These compositions were often complemented by abstract animations drawn directly onto 16 mm film. Bringing these elements together, Margaret Tait offered a cinema of everyday life, shaped by mystery and ambiguity and imbued with an experimental sensibility.
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This event is part of the Meno Avilys’ Cinematheque event series, curated by Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė.
Cinematheque event series is a continuous project of “Meno Avilys”, during which Lithuanian and foreign artists, curators, and researchers are invited to explore the physical and virtual archive of the restored films and video art of the Cinematheque. The curatorial research is presented to the audiences of “Meno Avilys” via guest-curated programmes of moving pictures, public talks, commissioned texts, and literature recommendations.
𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗿: „Meno avilys“
𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀: Lietuvos kultūros taryba, Vilniaus miesto savivaldybė, Lietuvos kino centras
𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗿: Mindaugas Gavrilovas (Studio Cryo)