Sophie Cundale

Imagining a revolutionary play authored by two female activists in the anti-colonial movement in post-war London.

Collaborative Efforts is a comedy-drama about art, rivalry and the ambiguity of authorship, set over the course of a low key house party in East London. When Ben, whose career is stalling, finds out about his former best friend Dan’s suspiciously familiar new project, he begins to spiral, and when fashionably-late Dan finally arrives, tensions threaten to boil over.

The lives of a handful of millennial artists in London intersect in a series of elliptical vignettes. A painter discusses his recent work with a critic. His girlfriend, a filmmaker, has recently completed her first feature, and guests on a podcast to promote it. She doesn’t know that her former best friend is in town with her husband, leading to an awkward chance encounter. Throughout, discussions about unresolved tensions in art sit alongside unresolved tensions in interpersonal relationships, which at times risk reaching fever pitch.

The film sees a woman visit a hypnotist to address an unwanted addiction. As part of her cure, objects, people and images are transformed through hypnosis; pain is bought to the surface and removed through analgesia. The title refers to the artist Dora Maar, Picasso’s lover and muse, who after the break-up of their affair, declared: "After Picasso, only God."

This supernatural melodrama about loss follows the journey of a professional boxer after a near-fatal knockout. Screening online until 12 December 2020 – throughout the duration of The Near Room exhibition at Bonington Gallery, which is temporarily closed due to lockdown restrictions.