Eavesdropping At The Movies

A one-off experience visits Birmingham's Electric Cinema: The Afterlight, an 82-minute collage assembled from footage in which every person in frame is now dead. Director Charlie Shackleton accompanies the film on its tour, not only to give post-screening Q&A sessions, but also because he is in possession of the only copy of the film in existence - a single 35mm print that gradually degrades with each successive screening, picking up scratches and other wear and tear, and when it's finally too damaged to watch any longer, it's gone for good. It's a compelling idea, invoking questions of film preservation, the ways in which film captures and preserves moments in time, and the peculiar cinematic magic (and particularly magic of celluloid) that brings ghosts to life through illumination. And Shackleton is a charming, intelligent and witty speaker, the best advertisement for his own film, although his style and confidence activate José's cynicism circuits - do we really believe that he hasn't kept a copy of the