OFF SHORE – Gallivant
2007
Video - 16mm b/w and mini dv colour - 20 minutes
Beginning in the pitch-black early hours of a September morning, the film follows a 14hr 17min cross-channel relay swim that I made along with my brothers Mark and Joey, a friend Ian Dale, the actor and comedian Sean Lock (Smart Alek and co-writer of This Filthy Earth) and the actor Tchili (This Filthy Earth and Ivul).
The attempt was witnessed by the writer and wordsmith Iain Sinclair and is narrated by Eden Kötting. The film came about in 2006 (the 10 year anniversary since the release of the original film Gallivant) and the chance discovery of a boat called The Gallivant, which offered to shadow us across the Channel as a support vessel.
Flotsam and jetsam in the form of conversations, field recordings and the voices of Gladys and Eden from the original film invade. The film shows scenes of explicit vomiting.
Rode them all the way in to where his rib cage scraped against the tiny sharp pebbles and jagged clamshells and pulverized sea shells at the edge of the shore and he hustled to his feet and hurriedly turned and went lurching through the low surf until it was knee high and deep enough for him to plunge in and begin swimming madly out to the rising breakers – into the advancing, green Atlantic, rolling unstoppably towards him like the obstinate fact of the future.
Philip Roth - EverymanCollections