Rough Cut (Hiker Meat) (NR)

synopsis

A documentary about a film that never was, Rough Cut by London-based artist Jamie Shovlin explores the making of a 1970s exploitation film, Hiker Meat; an imaginary concept by fictitious Italian director Jesus Rinzoli. This film-within-a-film operates as both affectionate homage to and academic deconstruction of the exploitation genre, creating a Frankenstein-esque cut-and-paste of the era's concerns and fascinations, emphasising the archetypes and mythologies of this often critically maligned period of filmmaking. Principal photography for Rough Cut took place in the English Lake District over an intense shoot that pulled together not one but two alternate casts for both live action and dubbed sequences, a motorcade of vintage US vehicles, pyrotechnics, gallons of latex and something monstrous in the woodshed. Key recreated sections are contrasted with on-set footage and with details of the development of the soundtrack, storyboards, design and models, combining to form a feature-length work that Shovlin describes as a ‘metamentary', stripping back the making, unmaking and remaking of both the film and the idea, as a kind of ode to the power of imagination.