Lis Rhodes’ latest essay film Disquiet, made against the backdrop of the pandemic, continues her ongoing project of documenting and drawing attention to the progressive eradication of justice, equality and individual liberties as a consequence of neoliberal capitalism. Using still images, sound, text and her distinctive voice-over, Rhodes calls out the evils of globalisation whilst taking a truly global approach in her incisive analysis. From the atomic destruction of Hiroshima to the conquest of the skies, Disquiet draws connections between the local, the transnational, and even the extra-terrestrial, in order to untangle the relationship between violence and profit. As Rhodes poignantly asks: ‘can warnings warn, when violence is a profitable industry?’

Since the 1970s, Rhodes has been making radical and experimental work that challenges hegemonic narratives and the power structures of language. An important figure at the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, Rhodes was also a founding member of Circles, the first British distributor of film, video and performance by women artists. An anthology of her writing, Telling Invents Told, was published in 2019.

‘Whose history? It is hard to think of a question more central to our moment, or an artist who has posed it more insistently and urgently than Lis Rhodes. Her films comprise one of the most radical rethinkings of experimental film and politics of the last fifty years; they are like flashbulbs, exposing the physiognomies of power in the cracks of everyday experience.’
– Mike Sperlinger

This screening will be introduced by Pablo de Ocampo, director and curator of moving image at Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis.