MASTERCLASS

A filmmaker turns forensic detective as she pieces together hundreds of photographs in search of what she believes to be a buried history, only to find herself inside the story she is researching. The Host investigates the activities of British Petroleum (BP) in Iran; a tale of power, imperial hubris and catastrophe. While the tectonic plates of geopolitical conspiracy shift in the background, the film asks us to look, and look again, at images produced by the oil company and personal photos taken by its British staff in Iran – including the filmmaker's parents – not for what they show, but for what they betray. The Host is about the stories we tell about ourselves and others, the facts and fictions we live by – and their consequences.

The Z Unit's operations in a world far from our own was an experiment of sorts, a test. And this place, inhabited by beings different from ourselves, served as a laboratory. A successful outcome would secure the Z Unit's future, enabling its enterprise to expand and its methods to be applied to other worlds.

An investigation into imperial image-making, and destruction.

The first part of an ongoing project, Strange Object takes aerial photographs of an undisclosed colonized territory as the starting point for a meditation on images, erasure, and the writing of history.