Patrick Keiller is one of the most innovative and visionary filmmakers in the UK, predominantly thanks to his fascinating, intellectually rigorous films London and Robinson in Space, two essay films that rank with Chris Marker's work among the greatest achievements of the form. Pioneering a heady mix of documentary observation, philosophical musing, and quasi-narrative storytelling, both films are animated by the words of an off-screen narrator who describes the wanderings of an unseen figure named Robinson. Embedding his musings in the perspectives of these dual fictional constructs, and presenting them in the form of travelogues (after the manner of the great German writer W.G. Sebald), Keiller creates complex, provocative, and haunting essays on history, politics, landscape, and time.

London and Robinson in Space won Keiller a great deal of acclaim, both in the UK and abroad. And yet the release of the third and final film in his "Robinson" trilogy has gone largely unheralded here in the U.S., a grievous oversight that we're very pleased to rectify with a week-long run of the new film, Robinson in Ruins, along with screenings of the other two films in the trilogy, and a handful of even more rarely-screened films.

Featured Works:

London (1994); Robinson in Space (1997); The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000); Robinson in Ruins (2010, pictured)

Program information:

Patrick Keiller's Robinson Trilogy

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