Patrick Keiller
Directing
Biography
Patrick Keiller is a British filmmaker and lecturer renowned for his essay films that explore urban landscapes and socio-political themes. His acclaimed works include London (1994) and Robinson in Space (1997), which combine documentary footage with fictional narratives to examine the changing face of Britain. Keiller's films are noted for their contemplative style and critical insights into contemporary society, making significant contributions to British cinema and cultural discourse.
Known For

A psycho-geographic journey through London and its history, as undertaken by an unseen narrator and his companion, Robinson, at the time of the 1992 general election.
London

Documentary with fictional elements exploring issues around housing in the United Kingdom.
The Dilapidated Dwelling

The eagerly awaited sequel to Patrick Keiller's London and Robinson in Space is a beautifully photographed cinematic essay on our current environmental and economic predicament, narrated by Vanessa Redgrave. Timely, provocative and studded with surreal humour, Robinson in Ruins reveals hidden histories and surprising visions (from the opium poppy fields of Oxfordshire to what seems to be a talking post box), making us consider the world around us afresh.
Robinson in Ruins
Ex-architect PATRICK KEILLER brings a graphic and compositional sense of landscape to this complex essay film following a conceited modern-day flaneur who conjects ruminatively over images of a curiously ill-defined European landscape. From within these images of construction, roadways and the never-ending to-ing and fro-ing of Europe's numerous train stations, can be glimpsed the visage of the old Europe, defined by borders, varied cultures and a distinct sense of place.
La fine – The End

Robinson is commissioned to investigate the unspecified "problem of England." The narrator describes his seven excursions, with the unseen Robinson, around the country. They mainly concentrate on ports, power stations, prisons, and manufacturing plants, but they also bring in various literary connections, as well as a few conventional landscapes.
Robinson in Space

Valtos is a story told from thirty years hence, in the last moments of its narrator, who awoke one day in 1987 'with the knowledge that I had been duplicated during the night, and that I was an inferior replica of myself'. There follows a relentless, epic, pursuit of an absconding phantom - his 'original' - which ends in catastrophe at Valtos, a place at once ethereal and terrifying.
Valtos

A film in two parts. In the first part, the narrator describes the events that led to his impulsive decision to rob his former employer. The camera meanwhile walks about above the nearby road junction, surveying the distracted environment. In the second part, he recounts the anatomy of his panic following the crime, while the walking camera reconstructs his escape route. A final caption reports what happened after that.
Stonebridge Park

Norwood (1983) continued the 'story' of Stonebridge Park and the technique, in another London suburb. Short films of increasing technical sophistication climaxed in 1989 with The Clouds, a further topographical exploration combining another anxious fictional commentary with imagery derived from a journey across the north of England from Jodrell Bank to Whitby.
Norwood

A black and white semi-narrative film, touching on moments in the narrator's life unavailable to his recollection, and a journey through the North of England on the prevailing wind.
The Clouds

Short film comparing a Mitchell and Kenyon film of Nottingham in 1902 to the present day. Made in connection to Keiller's installation The City of the Future at the Southbank in 2007.