A film by Petra Freeman
Music by Sofia Gubaidulina
Accordion played by Geir Draugsvoll, permission of Bis Records Sweden, © MUSICVERLAG HANS SIKORSKI GMBH & CO KG, HAMBURG
Sound Design Pete Howell
Producer & Editor Tim Rolt
Executive Producers Jacqui Davies & Gary Thomas

Girls and eels compelled to revisit, re-experience and return.

Tad’s Nest – the place where eels mature before being compelled to return to a location using only memories of sensations to guide them.

Tad’s Nest – a place where eels mature before being compelled to return to a location using only memories of sensations to guide them. The film examines the way memories are held as sensations and the ability of memory to invent people and places to perform the sensations. Compulsion to return, replay, and revisit.

Painting on glass; recording picture changes with digital stills camera; using computer to collect images and edit film.

About one fifth of the way through the painted part of Tad’s Nest.

I am enjoying the intense periods of staring into a light box. I have to concentrate very hard while I’m painting which is actually a welcome distraction from all the rubbish that generally bubbles around in my brain.

Although my children are now old enough to entertain themselves when I’m working the cat isn’t. He has become as obsessed with the light box as I have. (Must be the painty smell.) I have to be extremely vigilant when leaving work unattended having had to erase cat prints from my work (and the bedspread) on more than one occasion.

I have declined the opportunity to make an animatic as the way I work isn’t very easy to plan. I do stick to the original ideas but the timing and structure of the story is evolving as I go.

My ten year old daughter summed up how I feel about it when she said, 'Mum, if I knew what I was going to end up with when I began, I wouldn’t really feel like bothering to do it.'

Petra Freeman