John Smith Movies

A biblical interpretation of airline safety instructions.

Back stroke butterfly, front crawl and bras, we are awash in an ocean of bubbles. Meanwhile Captain Ahab sets sail on his magic carpet in search of...

While the Iraq war continues, a day’s sightseeing and the features of a German hotel provoke a stream of thoughts about events large and small.

Lost Sound documents fragments of discarded audio tape found on the streets of a small area of East London, combining the sound retrieved from each...

Waiting by the sea with his camera ready for action, the artist complains about the weather and attempts to describe his intentions and working...

Home Suite, Smith’s first video work, is a close-up journey through a domestic landscape and a journey through memory, containing only three...

Rapid cutting between identically framed portrait photographs creates composite faces and various illusions of movement. The film features...

John Smith’s Leading Light evolves a sense of screen depth and surface through the simple agency of light. The film is shot in a room over a...

Reflecting on past political problems and the state of the world as it was provides no tools or means for envisioning the future.

A reworking of material from the 16mm film ‘Blue Bathroom’, a distillation of ideas concerning the tension between representation and...

A portrait of the artist as a not so young man. The film-maker attempts to enter the digital age by making a new video version of his 1978 film 7P.

John Smith stands in front of a mirror, singing “Happy Birthday” in a minor key, like a funeral dirge, twice, as he washes his hands.

As the camera looks out through a barred window and the clock strikes four in a Swiss city, the death of Yasser Arafat provides the starting point...

A view across the border in Nicosia, the divided capital of Cyprus. The camera looks over the rooftops of the Greek Cypriot south to the mountains of...

A film by John Smith and Ian Bourn

16mm experimental film of a desk fan.

Blue Bathroom is a distillation of ideas concerning the tension between representation and materiality. It begins with an apparently straightforward...

Directed by John Smith

THE CAMERA, THE ACTOR was commissioned by musician Charles Hayward to accompany the song of the same name on his album entitled (Begin Anywhere).

'Shine So Hard' is a rare Echo and the Bunnymen promotional concert film, taking place during their 1981 'Camo Tour'.