The Off-Season

The Off-Season charts a village in Wester Ross where stretches of housing are empty in the off-season, a place where it is becoming harder and harder to stay, work and live. ‘A static caravan holds our father in place.’ The film carries 8mm images from the filmmaker’s family recordings from the 70’s, alongside recent 16mm footage of their mother’s postal run through the area they grew up in, with a backdrop of telescopic observations of empty homes. The film holds feelings of unrest, negativity, love and loss. Like a lament, it carries the song of the off-season, rutting, wind and rain - cradled discordantly and arranged in pieces. In duet with their family recordings, similar sights and subjects are found. A line in the film is written to the audience as well as pictured in negative afterimage - ‘Our mother points to houses that receive no mail.’ An Illusion is offered to the audience. Which images stay with us?