Victor is a writer, possessed by a terrifying story, hunting for four refugee performers of a theatre destroyed in a mysterious fire. Drawn to a remote settlement founded by the mysterious Stronheim, owner of a Factory hidden deep within a dreamlike landscape, Victor finds his friends under the wing of an aristocratic noble and her child-like ward who both watch over the settlement for Stronheim. A dangerous pact is made between Victor and Stronheim. The destroyed theatre will be reconstructed, and in return, Victor must complete his story, no matter the cost. Stronhem requires it to be performed at the village Festival of Memories, where bizarre rituals are enacted by the villagers under the influence of the Factory’s hallucinogenic effluence. Following the dangerous, twisted paths to the heart of inspiration and creativity. Victor’s imagination and the fragmented memories and emotions of the performers violently collide in an act of creation that not everyone can survive. Enter into the heart of English Dreaming and engage in a live cinema encounter like no other. Explore the world of Strange Factories and experience the madness and terror of haunted cinema, as you witness the film unravel inside Stronheim's factory and its characters come to life around you to haunt you in the flesh. The ghosts of the silver screen will join you in a mysterious ritual that will align you with the ancient paths of Die Geisteweige and immerse you in a film filled with magic, obsession and mystery. Who is the infamous Stronheim? What exactly is the purpose of his hidden factory? And why have four performers fleeing from a burning theatre become enmeshed in the primal struggle of a story giving birth to itself? Strange Factories draws on ancient theatrical traditions and mystical exploration, to wrench at the heart of what it means to be human. Will you allow it to show you the wonder behind the moving pictures - the dreams of violent imagination? Will you permit FoolishPeople to conjure for you, as darkness falls, and the lights go down? Not everyone can survive the violence of Creation.
FoolishPeople arrive back in central London after touring the UK’s most beautiful independent cinemas, to manifest Strange Factories (2013) for one final performance at the Cinema Museum.
This night will be a unique celebration of what we carnival and circus folk call the Home Sweet Home: the final show of the season. After the haunting, you will be invited to mingle with ghosts of the silver screen at the after party.
Presented as a reimagined live performance, this presentation explores a different aspect of the story, exposing the myth of Stronheim from a new perspective. So if you visited the settlement in 2013, and are already a member of the Imaginari we have further secrets to share.
"Every cinema is alive with the emotions of its audience. Every screen is a portal that permits access to locations across the realms of wonder. When certain trials are met, you too can travel far and perhaps find Stronheim's Factory... The Practicalities of Passage - Across The Realms of Wonder and Back in Seven Days - A Travel Diary by Miss Frances Silver - aged 16 - Former resident of Oxford - 1937 http://www.uppcinema.com/film/strange-factories
We received such incredible feedback from our audience in Clevedon the past days! Thank you all very much!
"Thank you all for an amazing evening last night, it was the best performance and piece of art I've ever seen, you gave your all and it went beyond acting or performance as you were your characters in your true self! Amazing and very inspiring, our group really enjoyed it and will you will be seeing more of us."
Daniella Vancheri
"Hello Foolish People I want to acknowledge the powerful experience that is Strange Factories. I was transported to a space which was so exciting. At times I felt like screaming, laughing and weeping all at once. This was a milestone, I feel changed. The strangeness continues."
Damienscamp MaloneyMoran
"Thank you to Foolish People for yet another wonderful night. Strange Factories was mysterious and enthralling and everything I have come to expect from such talented writers and artists. Although it is a piece like no other, I found myself reminded of the works of Ben Wheatley and truly cannot wait to relive the experience."
Karen Mosley
#StrangeFactories Photo: Rose, Photography by Yiannis Katsaris
Strange Factories screens as part of Scalarama and Heritage Open Days at the Curzon Community Cinema Clevedon on the 13th of September at 7pm. Tickets Available now.
"There is another version of you, the one who stole all of the right choices" - Stronheim
Scalarama and Curzon Cinema Clevedon presents Strange Factories; an immersive screening of a haunted film by the infamous Stronheim as part of this years Heritage Open Days.
We're proud to announce that #StrangeFactories is screening at The Kings Theatre as part of the Making Waves Film Festival.
What makes this so exciting is that the historic Kings Theatre is the location we shot the central theatre scenes for Strange Factories.
This makes this particular date of our 2014 tour a very special and unique immersive experience. The audience will exist inside the actual setting of the film.
Tickets are available now.
http://www.makingwavesfilmfestival.co.uk/events/strange-factories
Suppose a character, in one of the stories you and I write, tried to conceive of his origin, and tried to foresee beyond what he knows of his destiny at any given point of the story. His enquiries, his speculations, would lead him to hypotheses (infinity, chance, indeterminacy, free will, curved space and time …) very similar to those at which thinkers arrive when speculating about the universe.
This is why the traffic between storytelling and metaphysics is continuous.
The notion that life, as lived, is a story being told is a recurring one. Rationalism rejected this notion by proposing that the laws of nature were ineluctably mechanical. Most recent scientific research tends to suggest that the natural working of the processes of the universe resemble those of a brain rather than a machine. To think of such a ‘brain’ as a narrator—although many scientists would protest that the thought was too anthropomorphic—has again become feasible. The metaphysics of storytelling has ceased to be a merely literary concern.
What separates us from the characters about whom we write is not knowledge, either objective or subjective, but their experience of time in the story we are telling. This separation allows us, the storytellers, the power of knowing the whole. Yet, equally, this separation renders us powerless: we cannot control our characters, after the narration has begun. We are obliged to follow them, and this following is through and across the time, which they are living and which we oversee.
The time, and therefore the story, belongs to them. Yet the meaning of the story, what makes it worthy of being told, is what we can see and what inspires us because we are beyond its time.
Those who read or listen to our stories see everything as through a lens. This lens is the secret of narration, and it is ground anew in every story, ground between the temporal and the timeless.
If we storytellers are Death’s Secretaries, we are so because, in our brief mortal lives, we are grinders of these lenses.
John Berger, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos (via somenotesonfilm)
Strange Factories is available from today on Reel House. To celebrate for one week only, you can rent FoolishPeople’s first feature for $1.99 or buy for just $7.99.
