Swedenborg Film Festival

The Swedenborg Film Festival returns in 2015 with a renewed format. Screening new works by emerging artist filmmakers alongside special screenings by established international artists, the festival takes place in Swedenborg House, the archive and publishing house dedicated to a great, enigmatic and enduring thinker.

The only film festival in the world inspired by the work of a single philosopher, and inaugurated in 2010, the SFF has received a huge response from thousands of filmmakers around the world. Co-curated in 2015 by Gareth Evans (Whitechapel Gallery) and Nora Foster (Frieze), a programme of short works and feature films explore the singular legacy of the Swedish philosopher, scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a seminal influence on the great English poet William Blake.

The annual festival is re-launched in July with an expanded framework, a new competition and a fresh commitment to showing the work of international filmmakers who are engaging with themes similar to those that energised Swedenborg.

The festival will also announce the open call for submissions for its 2016 competition. From 13th July to 30th November makers internationally can enter short artists' films on an array of themes that reflect the broad range of Swedenborg’s thought and work.

"Welcoming audiences and artists alike to its listed premises in Bloomsbury, the Swedenborg Society will this year celebrate the award-winning Triptych of the great Polish director Lech Majewski, a multi-award winning filmmaker, co-writer and co-producer of artist Julian Schnabel's startling feature debut Basquiat, the subject of a retrospective at MOMA New York and one of the most engaged artists of our times", said the festival’s co-curator Nora Foster.

Gareth Evans, SFF co-curator, added, "Majewski's astonishing feature film series The Garden of Earthly Delights (2006), The Mill and the Cross (2011) and Field of Dogs (2014) brings to startling cinematic life the works of Bosch, Brueghel and Dante respectively, creating allusive, associative and profoundly immersive encounters with works of undisputed genius. This festival will mark the first time Majewski's Triptych has been shown complete in the UK. We are delighted that Mr. Majewski himself will be present throughout."