MONSTERS

MONSTERS is a participatory film project made in collaboration with school children from across East Anglia. It takes the form of a fictional documentary in which the children describe the impact and aftermath of a dramatic monster attack on towns across the entire region. The film will use the familiar tropes of Hollywood monster movies as a way for young people to reckon with ecological change and its impact on the fragile landscapes of the Eastern region.

Artists, Andy Field and Beckie Darlington are working with four primary schools, collaborating with groups of ten to twelve children at each school to write and perform their own fragment of the larger story. These separate strands will be brought together in the final edit, enabling the children to see themselves represented on screen alongside their peers from across the region, tackling the same issues and collaborating together to create the finished film.

For the young people, the project will be a playful opportunity to write and perform in their own film, learning about how such a project is made. It is also a chance for them to rethink their relationship to the place they call home, and engaging with the very real ecological challenges that they and the region face in the future in a way that balances the ‘serious’ and the ‘silly’.

We will celebrate the project at Norfolk & Norwich Festival in May 2025 as the children share their work and the story of the film’s creation. Local screenings will also take place in each of the four locations.

Artists

Andy Field and Beckie Darlington

Locations

Ipswich and Lowestoft, Suffolk. Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and  Sheringham, Norfolk

Participants

48 Key Stage 2 pupils from across Gladstone Primary School, Rushmere Primary School, Somerleyton Primary School and Sheringham Community Primary School

Partners

First Light Festival, Nene Park Trust, Sheringham Little Theatre and SPILL Festival