Huddersfield University film Carbon Dating Angels makes world-wide impression

Nov 2 2009 By Emma Davison

A FILM made by a Huddersfield University lecturer and student is wowing audiences at festivals around the world.

The special collaboration, Carbon Dating Angels, is set to be screened at the Leeds International Film Festival next month after gathering critical acclaim.

The short film is the result of a three-month project by senior lecturer in criminal and community justice Robin Kiteley and music student Sam Stocks.

The 11-minute experimental piece saw the pair leaving behind their own areas of expertise to explore ‘screendance’ – using filming techniques to show movement on screen.

The film uses 1930s archive footage of x-ray techniques alongside Sam’s musical interpretation.

Robin said: “The footage of x-ray techniques inspired us to think about the ways in which these scientific processes were able to tell us new things about our bodies and the new ways of looking at things.

“We then started thinking about applying these scientific processes to things which are currently ‘unknowable’ and came up with the idea of Carbon Dating Angels.”

Film fan Robin, from the university’s school of human and health sciences, got involved with the project through the university’s ‘Artists Access to Art Colleges’ scheme.

He said: “I was keen to collaborate with a music student or sound artist to achieve a final piece in which visual and audio elements were intimately related.