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Western movie made in Olympic zone
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent02.06.08
Welcome to the Big Country - the badlands of the Wild West where outlaws bushwhack their victims, Indians go on the warpath, and settlers stake their claims.
Just be careful of the traffic on the M11 link road, and don't disturb the neighbours - you're in east London.
The epic panoramas of the American West have been recreated in the area and can be seen in a new film at the ICA this week.
Directors Anja Kirschner, 30, and David Panos, 36, used landfill sites in the Thames Gateway, gravel pits serving the Olympic Park, and vistas of Hackney Marshes and Rainham Marshes for their 53-minute movie, Trail Of The Spider.
Starring trained actors and East End locals, it has a strong political message.
Parallels are implied between the 19thcentury goldrush and seizure of Native American land, and the land-grab and property boom associated with the 2012 Games. The gentrification of areas such as Hackney, as councils sell off property to developers and wealthier people move into formerly working-class areas, is also examined. Many of those involved in the film became friends during the occupation of Cafe Francesca in Hackney's Broadway Market to prevent its sale for redevelopment.
Kirschner, a German who has lived in London for 14 years, said: "I became interested in Westerns when me and David were politically involved in experiences in our area - the loss of homes and businesses as a consequence of a council sell-off in 2000. It seemed like the genre could be used to talk about these experiences, in a humorous way but with more serious undertones."
Panos, who was born in Greece but grew up in Britain, said: "The film is not a documentary piece. It's not earnest."
It stars a haunted gunfighter who pits himself against the calculating surveyors, corrupt lawmen and hired thugs of a vanishing frontier. The gunfighter is black. Panos said: "A third of the cowboys in the West were black or Mexican but that racial element was suppressed in Hollywood."
Their new project follows a video, Polly II: Plan For A Revolution In The Docklands, in which the East End is racked by social upheaval after severe flooding.
Trail Of The Spider was made with support from bodies including the Arts Council and Film London. It runs from today until next Monday at the ICA, in The Mall, as part of Nought to Sixty, the institute's celebration of its 60th year.
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