2003. 5 min
A critical and ironic look at the way newspapers report childrens’ deaths: accidents, bad mothers, angry fathers and the bogeyman. Based on the artist's archive of newspaper clippings, these are the stories that help sell papers. With an inventive mix of still photography and live action, the film sweeps around Britain to create a chilling comment on death, news reporting and the family.
Stranger danger is the media’s buzz word, but statistics show that a child is 20 times more likely to be murdered by one of their parents than by a stranger – every six weeks in the UK, a man or a woman kills their child.
"Newspaper articles about the murder and disappearance of English children are the starting point of this critical discussion about abuse and the dependence of children."
EMAF tour programme 2004
This experimental film was funded by Arts Council England and Channel 4’s animate! scheme… technically we would describe it as ‘beyond live action’ rather than animation: it has a ‘real’ visual quality but is mainly made up of hundreds of manipulated photographs. We shot it on a variety of different formats ranging from the Linhof Technorama camera with it’s 6x17cm negative down to a tiny digital camera attached to a keyring.
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