A Year In a Field

BAFTA-winning documentarian Christopher Morris invites us to slow down, as he films for a year in a West Cornwall field; to immerse ourselves in this quiet, direct-action of stillness, to take a breath and reflect on the planetary impacts of our brief human existence, under the watchful gaze of the Longstone, an ancient monolith that predominates this elemental landscape.

The field is extraordinary in one respect - at its centre is the Longstone, a 4000-year-old standing stone, carved, and thrust into the soil at a time when humans first began on an industrial scale to adversely affect the planet. This pillar of granite has stood silent sentinel to everything we have done and continue to do to our planet. The ominous stone figure forms the central protagonist in this sublimely unique film – it points to where we have come from and perhaps where we are headed.A cultivated field, an ancient monolith, and a transitory human observer. This film is a record of their brief interaction.

“As I got closer and closer to the field, my view grew wider and wider, until finally, looking at the same small field, I began to see the universe.”