
Richard Heslop
Directing
Known For

A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.
The Garden
Caught up in a world he doesn't fit into, FRANK tells the unique story of an lonely outsider who manages to find friends in the strangest of places.
Frank

The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.
The Last of England

Imagining October explores art and politics in the final years of the Cold War, drawing connections between pre-Perestroika Russia and Thatcherite Britain. The title refers to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda film October: Ten Days That Shook the World 1928. The project began during a trip to the Soviet Union sponsored by the British Film Institute in October 1984. Jarman was invited to present The Tempest in Moscow and Baku with fellow filmmaker Sally Potter and film theorist Peter Wollen and asked in return to make a short film for the London Film Festival in November.
Imagining October

Live concert footage of The Sugarcubes from 1988 and 1989, mixed with short interview segments.
The Sugarcubes: Live Zabor
Disturbed by visions of a labyrinthine London about to be consumed by water, a lonely father begins to destroy his family's tower block flat in order to make room for an unlikely refuge in their front room.
Floating

Three promotional films by The Smiths directed with an artistic and conceptual vision by the late director Derek Jarman. The result is the junction of the powerful lyrics and melodies by Morrissey and Marr combined with Jarman's expressive images. The music videos: 1) The Queen Is Dead 2) There Is a Light That Never Goes Out 3) Panic
The Queen Is Dead

Ostia is a fascinating short film directed by Julian Cole and produced for the Royal College of Art, which reconstructs the events leading up to the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Ostia relocates the proceedings to London and stars Derek Jarman as Pasolini. The film features an evocative dream sequence which is accompanied by poignant excerpts from Pasolini’s own poetry, as read by Jarman.
Ostia
After months of continuous rain, all coastal areas of the UK are flooded. Bella and Jude are marooned on their flooded farm, cut off from any contact with the world outside.
The Raft of the Medusa

Greatest Hits is a 2001 album by The Cure. The band's relationship with longtime label Fiction Records came to a close, and The Cure were obliged to release one final album for the label. Robert Smith agreed to release a greatest hits album under the condition that he could choose the tracks himself.
The Cure - Greatest Hits Videos

Stop-motion experimental short where two men communicate with one another, talk on the telephone, smoke cigarettes, and contort themselves. Produced 1987 and released in 1988 on the VHS compilation Fat of the Land, released via Factory Records video imprint IKON. "Here is the first tape of a new British cinema which should be seen by everyone who loves film. The official British cinema is truly dead, alive only in admens bought dreams. This is the way to go."- Derek Jarman
The Conversation

A homoerotic homage to Jean Genet and Comte de Lautréamont, featuring Francois Testory Richard Heslop and Celestino Coronado. The visual motif of the nosegay is used to tell the story of the love of an angel for a hermaphrodite. Made at the Royal College of Art.
A Nosegay

A nine year old girl receives a giant bandsaw for her birthday
The Child And The Saw

A tribute to Derek Jarman.
Shooting the Hunter

An elegy on the death of the film-maker's mother. Fragments from dreams, nightmares and memories combine with natural sound and landscape in this short film poem "a myriad of instances in transit" M. Maziere, Independent Media. Through various texts and spoken diaries oblique reference is made to the persistence of the imagination; the dark, wild wood of Dante's Inferno with Paolo and Francescs buffeted on an infernal breeze, whilst an iconoclasic re-depiction of a Renaissance painting of the deposition by Raphael, describes an age in which the reality of death and grief were less hidden.
Behind Closed Doors
Scratch video piece by Richard Heslop for the band 23 Skidoo.
Language

"The 7 songs video was Made between 1981-1982 . Edited at The London collage of printing and St Martins school of art. Shot on 8mm and vhs and u matic tape and found footage. The colourisation was created using a wonderful hand made early colour synth that was installed into the edit suite at the L.C.P at the time. I started doing live projectons for 23 skidoos performances having already known Johnny and Alex Turnbul from being in the same skateboard team and hanging out at skate cty skateboard park with them. They released 7 songs and wanted to make pictures to go with the tracks. We were rehearsing In Throbbing Gristles recording studio in london fields in Hackney at the time and i filmed them there for the small bit of live footage of them in the video. I released the VHS of this with Doublevsion a coumpany from Shefield . It was a cut and paste piece of work, i was learning to edit as i went along and was a very ntuitive process." - Richard Heslop
23 Skidoo, 7 Songs

In 1986 Landin directed the film Procar in collaboration with Heslop and Herbert Verhey for live performances in Amsterdam with the Car Ensemble of the Netherlands. The film Procar later appeared in the programme of the Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin 1987 with a remastered audio recording of the Car Ensemble as soundtrack. It was also released as part of a compilation of British short films 1984-1987 called Fat of the Land.
Procar
Non-Narrative experimental short by Richard Heslop and Carrie Kirkpatrick produced in 1986 and included on the 1988 VHS compilation Fat of the Land, released under Factory Records's IKON imprint. "Here is the first tape of a new British cinema which should be seen by everyone who loves film. The official British cinema is truly dead, alive only in admens bought dreams. This is the way to go."- Derek Jarman
Less Than Useless
A music video made while I was at St. Martins College of Art, compiled from 8mm film I'd shot and found footage. The recent version has a clean soundtrack but the picture came off a very old U-matic tape that was warped, hence it has a strange stutter and freeze effect on it which wasn't in the original edit but--as part of the look of the piece was to do with decay and things falling apart--it kind of fits. I made this video after I had made 7 Songs for 23 Skidoo as I was doing a live multi-screen film show for the band during their live performances and this was an extension of that process, again at St. Martins College of Art and the London College of Printing.