BEATRICE GIBSON
SCENE NO. 11
We cut to the inside of a cave deep underground, the woman alone, a lake and in it a boat, two oars resting on its sides. Pink and green lights. Stalagmites drip, rocks glisten. The echo of a song spilling in from an adjacent cavern. Watery. Like an old tape machine in the bath.
The woman looks at her reflection. A second woman smiles back at her. A third person also appears. Smoke envelops the cave. Shards of light project across the space, piercing the whiteness. We hear a voice:
“It’s in the desert, under a perpetual neon light. She’s a blackjack dealer. She drifts between work and home. An uncle dies, a husband is missing. First we see her asleep in bed, a hand on a white pillow, acrylic nails, long and red. Her job is vapid and she’s indifferent. Nothing really changes. She deals more cards”
We cut to a hotel room, the woman just risen. The same music from the cave still audible on headphones tucked under crumpled, abandoned sheets. The sound of a shower being turned off. She dresses slowly, methodically, then closes the door behind her and walks back out into the night.
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Beatrice Gibson was born in 1978 is an artist and filmmaker based in London. In 2019 she had solo exhibitions at Camden art Centre, London Bergen Kunstall and Mercer Union, Toronto. She is twice winner of The Tiger Award for Best Short Film. In 2015 she won the 17th Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel, and more recently was the recipient of the Images Festival Award for Autobiography (2019). Her latest film premiered at Director’s Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival, 2019.