Christopher Morris: A Year in the Field

This text is written by the festival directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade:

BAFTA awarded English author Christopher Morris makes one of the most unusual, artistically superior works of creative documentaries in this year. A film that invites you to forget the usual narrative constructions, to forget the almost obligatory anthropocentric events and surrender to the deep primordial rhythm that pulsates the planet.

Everywhere countless people experience the profound tragic destruction of the world and nature, and at the same time despair because of their powerlessness to oppose it. This is a magnificent film of true hope, which introduces us to time courses wider and more comprehensive than human time, which the author’s voice only occasionally reminds us of. The film is a bold and uncompromising intention for one lone voice and one brilliant documentary to bravely confront the dark forces of destruction. The author takes us to a unique place in western Cornwall, in the very south of England, where a solitary monolith about 4000 years old stands in a picturesque landscape as a witness of time in its cyclical movement through the seasons. Like in Kubrick’s cult film “2001 A Space Odyssey” we perceive this monolith as the presence of some, unknown to our world, intelligence capable of transmitting the impulses of change. Through shots of magnificent beauty, the film follows a life cycle of the field between two winter solstices. We immerse ourselves in the divine beauty of nature shaped by transcendent forces. In a sophisticated way the passionate observer films changes of the ubiquitous life and light during one annual cycle delicately introducing a pace that we have forgotten by separating ourselves from nature. In the magical moments of immersion in the enchanting and opaque world to which we belong, the author amazingly creates an experience of the rhythm of time in which the long and slow beats of the universe and the primeval pulsate.

This is a healing time capsule where we can pause and reflect in order to find our way out of the general rush of the world.

Great Britain 2023 86 minutes


Share your love
Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

Articles: 3926