Director Grant Gee will be in conversation with Gareth Evans after the screening. The programme will open with a live reading of his poem 'For My Friend, Max Sebald' by poet and translator Stephen Watts.
One of the late 20th century's most important writers, W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) died in a car crash 25 years ago today. Praised by Susan Sontag and numerous others, he was on course to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Patience (After Sebald) by Grant Gee (Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Joy Division, Meeting People Is Easy) was the first film to explore his work and influence. A multi-layered film essay, narrated by Jonathan Pryce, on landscape, art, history, life and loss, it is told via a long walk through coastal East Anglia tracking the author's most famous book, The Rings of Saturn. As in the book, the film mixes history, travelogue, memoir, meditation, fiction and images to explore the personal, public and often overlooked histories of our times. Sebald has profoundly influenced many of today’s leading writers, thinkers and artists, a number of whom are interviewed for the film, including Robert Macfarlane, Katie Mitchell, Adam Philips, Iain Sinclair and Tacita Dean. The Guardian called it "teasing and elegant", The Observer "immensely enjoyable", while The New York Times described it as a "hauntingly original piece of literary criticism."
Every audience member will receive a copy of the now out-of-print UK dvd edition of the film, which features an exclusive printed, fold-out map of the book's themes and locations by the American novelist Rick Moody (The Ice Storm).
