Roz Mortimer
Wormcharmer
16mm film stills, 8.31 minutes, 1998

Linked artist Collaboration


To see more of Roz's work follow this link to the Wonderdog website

Roz Mortimer’s work is an intriguing mix of fact and fiction. Her films have a starting point in documentary but things are never quite what they seem. She tells us one thing, but shows us another, thus alluding to a myriad of sometimes unwelcome associations.
There is a familiarity about her characters and settings which are partially reconstructed from collective memory (nursery rhymes, fairy tales, children’s books, advertisements). They awaken a recognition and association which compound with the conflicting message to unsettling effect.
Mortimer’s childhood was spent in North London and she has a highly developed understanding of the suburban experience. This becomes apparent through her use of location as a visual metaphor for containment and control and in her character developments, charting the stifling effects of repression and tedium to their inevitable conclusion. Her narratives, though humorous and surreal, are disturbing insights into middle classness, repression and guilt.
In the short film, Wormcharmer, a housewife takes us on a fabulous journey through her garden and suburban show house; shamelessly flouting convention to explore her desires and confront her/our deepest fears. She peels back the veneer of her perfect home to lead us into the subterranean world of worms. A playfully perverse film about sex, dirt and housework.


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