For the past fifteen years American filmmaker David Gatten (US, 1971) has conducted a conscientious filmic investigation of the intersections between text and image, representation and abstraction, the emotional and the intellectual. Using traditional research methods as well as experimental film processes, he delves into the annals of private lives and public histories, in search for a cinematographic synthesis of biography, philosophy and poetry. His silent, handmade and rigorously structured films betray a certain influence of avant-garde filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage and Hollis Frampton, but at the same time reveal a strong personal identity, driven both by theoretical and spiritual considerations. Based on the writings of the same title from the library of William Byrd’s family in 18th-century Virginia, the series Secret History of the Dividing Line forms the core of his oeuvre. The handsome results of his search are, in his own words, “bookish films about letters and libraries and lovers and ghosts that are filled with words, some of which you can read.” (David Gatten)

The first four episodes of the 9-part Secret History of the Dividing Line will be screened for the first time in Belgium as part of the thematic programme ‘Vital Signs’. Gatten’s first film Hardwood Process (1996) is also included in ‘Vital Signs’, whereas his recent work Journal & Remarks (2009) will be screened in the competition programme.