Filming Batum (2016)

On the set of Batum, with Nina Zabicka (AD). Photo by Daisy Rickman

Actress Genie Kaminski’s joyful spirit. Photo by Daisy Rickman

We all love the grain on this out of date 35mm film that Daisy used.

Nina Zabicka and Genie Kaminski. Photo by Daisy Rickman

With Genie Kaminski. Photo by Daisy Rickman

Filming through a prism, with Nina Zabicka. Photo by Daisy Rickman

Batum played at London Short Film Festival (2017) in the ‘New Shorts: Experiments: Celluloid Traces’ programme at the ICA.

Genie Kaminski (actor and voice), Rob Godman (sound) and Nina Zabicka (AD). Photograph by Reed O'Beirne

I found Genie Kaminski through Casting Call Pro and was immediately struck by her voice. In Batum she reads lines from Osip Mandelstam and Joseph Stalin's poems. Genie has recently directed and acted in Much Ado About Nothing at The Rose Playhouse. Nina Zabicka, now a Production Assistant at Vice, is one of those rare beasts who still works in film. Her eagle eye and attention to detail have created some of the best shots in the film. Rob Godman is a composer, sound designer and programmer who has also created sounds for Sam Jury’s award-winning films.

For an essay about the themes explored in Batum, see 'Ciné, ma vérité: Memory as a Creative Force in the Process of Constructing Subjectivities', Experiments in She-ness: Women and Undependent Cinema (Albuquerque: Basement Films, 2016).