A VAST SHADOW HOUSE

United Kingdom 2022 - DCP - 60 minutes, in English Director: Seán Martin

Print Courtesy: Seán Martin

Frequent filmmaker faves of many MIFFers, Seán Martin (here directing) and Louis Milne (here interviewing) return to Maine from across the Atlantic with the world premiere of a new film. An essay documentary, A VAST SHADOW HOUSE is centered in and around the life and work of Scots-born fantasy writer David Lindsay, author of the cult classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus, written in 1920. This unforgettably strange interplanetary fantasy inspired C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Phillip Pullman, among others. Lindsay was haunted by visions of a higher world, hidden behind mundane reality. Deeply affected by the losses of WWI, he left a secure career in London’s City to become a writer. In each of his novels, the protagonist finds glimpses of the transcendental in liminal places: the cliffs of the Scottish North Coast, the tors of Dartmoor, a time-window at the top of a haunted house... To illuminate and explore Lindsay’s vision, the film takes us on a cinematic journey through the otherworldly landscapes of his imagination, using spectacular aerial shots, together with archival and super-8 footage. Featuring interviews with Alan Moore (Watchmen,

Douglas

(one of America’s leading Tolkien scholars), Harold Bloom (literary critic, gnostic), Gary K. Wolfe (SF critic), and others. —Ken Eisen