2005
The starting point of Wintergarden, like that of In the Palace, was Martin’s fascination with a piece of sculpture – in this case, an unrealised monumental statue of Persephone, Greek goddess of the underworld. This statue was meant to tower over the De La Warr Pavilion, a modernist masterpiece on England’s south coast, romantic embodiment of ‘socialism by the sea’, and the primary location for this film. It was the Pavilion’s architect, Eric Mendelsohn, who, in the 1930’s, proposed, and then abandoned, plans for Persephone to grace his 20th century ‘wintergarden’, although she seemed a peculiar choice to embody the upbeat, health conscious, quasi-sanitorium character of his building. Perhaps Mendelsohn, a Jew exiled from Weimar Berlin, chose this split, dark goddess because she mirrored his own state of exile.
Wintergarden revivifies this lost project, using the structure of the Pavilion as armature, and for flesh: a young woman’s climb, downwards, into a strange world of song. Alternating between dark and light, between upward lifting and downward spiraling, Wintergarden awakens a dynamic tension between opposites. The film moves beyond historical reference to the period between the world wars by pointing towards, more generally, captive emotions that shadow heroism.
Cast
Nina Fog
Jenny Tarren
Maja Ratkje
Sophie Arstall
Minami Tamagawa
Katy Wood
Lucy Card
Zoe Duano
Rachel Healey
Lucy Hemmings
Jessica Highfield
Lauren Hutchinson
Tori Morgan Jones
Emily Kempson
Emma Matthews
Gemma Maynard
Jenny Poll
Anne Marie Stretton
Crew
Choreographer
Henrietta Hale
Composer
Maja Ratkje
Costume Designer
Hamish Morrow
Director of Photography
Noski Deville
Editor
Ülrike Munch
Sound Designer
Franco Adams
Head of Production
Bevis Bowden
Production Coordinator
Nina Ernst
First Assistant Director
Ioanna Karavela
Second Assistant Director
Karenjit Sahota
First Camera Assistant
David Wyatt
Second Camera Assistant
Pete Emery
Third Camera Assistant
Roland Grafenstein
Gaffer
Tom Guy
Best Boy
Shaun Mone
Sparks
Paul Brennan
Andrew Green
Rigging
Location Extreme
Grip
Alex Coverly
Sound Recordist
Franco Adams
Still Photographer
Peter Fauland
Makeup Artist
Caroline Weston
Costumes Assistants
Oden Wilson
Jemma Corbett
Production Assistant
Anna Vass
Runners
Rory Heffernan
Holly Heffernan
Elias Saunders-Deutsch
Thanks to
Peter Caw
Celia Davies
Jennifer Ginbey
Len Thornton
Tony Williams
Commissioned by
De La Warr Pavilion
Film and Video Umbrella