My film Lucretia has been accepted into the 15th Traverse Video Festival in Toulouse.

Trisha McCrae

Lucretia

My work is often raw, immediate and provocative.  I use film and the editing process to tell stories which carry powerful personal meaning for me.

The story is about Lucretia, the legendary Roman heroine.

According to Livy, one evening as Lucretia lay in bed sleeping Tarquin, the kings son, entered her room and raped her. Over come with sorrow and shame she took her own life.  Brutus, the Republican leader picked up Lucretia’s dead body and showed it to the crowd who became enraged and rose up against the King and his son.  It was Lucretia’s death that forged the beginning of the Roman Republic.

I chose Lucretia because of its strong connections to gender, voice and power. I wanted to understand Lucretia’s choice in the context of the familial structure of Roman society, the huge burden of cultural obligation to protect her family, especially her children from the shame of the assault.  I am also interested in the view that the legacy of Lucretia’s death represented a radical change in Italian perception at the time, a shift occurred in the power structure from an outdated chivalric monarchy, represented by the deposed Tarquins, to the political exchange of the new consular government formed by Brutus. I used the technique of colour change, from black and white to multi colour, to echo the radical move from Roman times to Italian contemporary life in the present day.

As a filmmaker I am committed to experimentation.  I use the language of film and the editing process to express and explore what I want to say. In Lucretia I chose to use three screens to expand the viewers consciousness and allow the eye to move saccadically from screen to screen so that they become an active participant in the viewing experience. I use music and sounds deictically and non-deictically to either encourage flow or direct the viewer to what I want them to see or to disrupt it. The eye may be drawn to the narrative of Lucretia with its dramatic live footage and erotic puppetry but also at times the eye moves to the emptiness of the abstract elements.  For me abstraction and the fragmented image is the purest way to allow the viewer in. Because for a moment a space opens up and their mind wanders into it with their own thoughts.  They truly become an active viewer.

The festival is a really exciting experience that takes over Toulouse.  There are videos and performances all over the city both indoors and outside in cinemas, churches, offices and on the street.  It is absolutely fantastic.  If you are into experimental film/performance and expanded cinema its a must.