A major retrospective of British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman comes to HOME

HOME has unveiled plans for a major retrospective of one of the most influential figures in contemporary British culture, Derek Jarman.

The programme, which will run from 30 Jan – 10 Mar, is part of a collaboration with Manchester Art Gallery and their upcoming Protest! exhibition.

Jarman, a set designer, author, gardener and filmmaker, merged avant-garde practices with a painterly approach to cinema composition and framing. He was also a pioneering figure in gay rights activism.

Opening on the eve of what would have been his 80^th birthday, Jarman at HOME comprises all of the director’s 11 feature films, along with a further 11 short films, presented chronologically over six weeks with special guests and speakers due to attend several screenings.

Curated by Rachel Hayward, Head of Film and Jason Wood, Creative Director: Film & Culture, the season opens with a compilation of Jarman’s Super 8 shorts, including his first film Studio Bankside (1972), and closes with a special triple-bill screening comprising: Glitterbug, a compilation of Super 8 fragments posthumously assembled by Jarman’s friends in 1994; The Queen is Dead made in 1986 as a music video for The Smiths’ song of the same name; and, Mark Jordan’s Leaving Time: The Art of Derek Jarman (2020), which features the director in his studio discussing morality, the tabloid press and the terminology applied to people’s sexuality.

Jarman’s musical collaborations with renowned musicians will also be touched upon elsewhere in the programme. From Sebastiane (1976), his first feature which boasts a distinctly moving score from Brian Eno, to his final film, Blue (1993) featuring a highly textured soundscape from renowned musicians including Simon Fisher Turner, Coil, Scanner and Brian Eno once more.

Jubilee (1978), Jarman’s provocative account of the punk movement, starring a host of key figures including Adam Ant and Toyah Willcox will also screen, followed by a post-screening Q&A with lead actor and punk rock icon, Jordan, on Sat 5 Feb.

Further special guests introducing screenings include: Writer-Director Francis Lee (God’s Own Country, Ammonite) who will introduce Caravaggio (1986), Jarman’s renowned biopic of the Italian Baroque painter which was the film debut of Sean Bean and frequent Jarman collaborator Tilda Swinton.

Friend and long-time Jarman collaborator James Mackay, who produced three of the shorts screening in the opening night Super 8 compilation, will participate in a Q&A following the screening on Sun 30 Jan. Adelle Stripe, author of Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, will introduce the closing night triple-bill programme.

In addition, The Garden (1990), a visual tour de force shot inside Jarman’s sparsely furnished home on the windswept Dungeness coastline, will screen with a recorded introduction from filmmakers and visual artists Andrew Kötting and Eden Kötting (This Our Still Life), while The Angelic Conversation (1985), Jarman’s tender non-narrative piece featuring Shakespeare’s sonnets read by Judi Dench, will be preceded by an audio introduction from director Mark Cousins (The Storms of Jeremy Thomas).

The retrospective runs alongside Manchester Art Gallery’s Protest! exhibition which marks the first time the eclectic strands of Jarman’s practice—as painter, writer, filmmaker, set-designer, gardener, political activist—have been brought together in over 20 years.