UK Premiere

Short Synopsis:

All hell breaks loose when a film maker takes over the identity of his subject, in this poignant and funny film about the artistic process.

Review:

Director Peter Boyd MacLean likes to make films about ‘people that make a difference’. His fly on the wall documentary focuses on digital artist Milree Hughes’ life and work in New York City. The film follows the strong willed artist as he expresses himself through both art and music. It also includes the ups and downs and miscommunications in the relationship between artist and director. Filmed with a handheld camera for the most part, Lummox contains some playful editing, and shots that experiment with light, grain and colour.

Boyd gets involved with the work of the artist and also with his life, observing him talk about his art and following him down the streets of New York. Putting Hughes’s work and personality on film, the director reflects his own experience and his thoughts on working so closely with an artist, capturing their most personal moments for the documentary. This turns out to be fascinating but also difficult, because while Boyd is working to create his own form of art, Hughes is trying to defend and protect his own career. The documentary is an interesting insight into an artist’s life and at the same time, an account on what it means to have the courage to leave your own mark. In Peter Boyd’s words Hughes is ‘his own figure in his own landscape;’ capturing that landscape and figure is a work of art in itself.

All films to be screened at: