Mattflix presents Aureole (2021) by Frances Scott.

Aureole is accompanied by a new essay, Winter is a planet by Dave Tompkins. Click here to read it now.

In meteorology, the aureole is an atmospheric, optical phenomenon; the visible inner disc of a corona, produced by the diffraction of light from the sun or the moon, bright starlight or planet-light.

Aureole brings together unused celestial images from Scott’s earlier film, Diviner (2017), with vocoder-readings from Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), scored by Chu-Li Shewring’s remix of the House track ‘Brighter Days’ (1992) by Cajmere featuring Dajae. Aureole is a transition between a ‘lost’ chapter from Diviner and Wendy (2022, forthcoming), a film fan-letter to composer Wendy Carlos, whose many interests include solar eclipse photography. Accelerating to a euphoric end, the film is the duration of the longest total solar eclipse, when the moon completely covers the sun.

“You will witness the day become near-night, like the deepest twilight. Sunset colors bathe the full horizon, while a gaping black hole gazes down at you from the inky sky, eye-like and surreal, surrounded by the solar corona, a halo of pearly ephemeral light of delicate beauty. Each time the corona looks quite different, and like an old friend's face you'll recognize each in photographs.” Wendy Carlos

Duration: 07:32
Single channel, 16mm film and betacam video transferred to digital, colour, stereo

Edit Frances Scott
Sound Chu-Li Shewring
Voice Michael Curran, reading Ursula K. Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
Music Chu-Li Shewring, vocoder mix of Cajmere featuring Dajae, Brighter Days (1992)
Film Footage from South West Film & Television Archive, sourced for Diviner (2017), a film commission with SWFTA and Peninsula Arts, Plymouth
Thanks Beth Bramich, Al Cocks, Phil Coy, Joyce Cronin, Michael Curran, Tim Dixon, Stine Hebert, Mat Jenner, Robin Kirkham, Robin Klassnik, Chu-Li Shewring, Dave Tompkins

Frances Scott’s films are distributed by LUX