Creatures of the Night
A film program, that takes place at New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw.
The film programme Creatures of the Night takes a retrospective look at the evolution of British nightlife, using cinema to explore the way in which dancing together transforms personal moments into collective movements of emancipation. The programme presents films from 1980 to the present, where dramaturgy of the night and its environments (clubs, discos, and bars) become the literal and symbolic spaces of cultural and social change. The dance floor is the common denominator, where people from diverse social backgrounds can meet and mingle. Shedding their identities shaped by class, ethnicity, or gender and at least for as long as the night lasts, dancers can perform a new role – the one they choose for themselves.
Bringing the sonic and visual potentialities of the dance floor to the big screen was an attempt at registering the intangible; filmmakers sought to portray freedom and self-expression. Clubs have been safe spaces, where many communities and subcultures got their sense of belonging. Nightlife, with mixing and mingling of bodies from different places in lives with music as a unifying force, is a vehicle of energy exchange and a creative process. Music and dance culture are intrinsically linked to self-discovery and social change. This programme, which looks at various musical genres, social environments, and local geographies, celebrates the richness of nightlife in its most diverse manifestations: from the collective club experience to individual sleepless nights of hedonism.