A LIFE ON THE FARM
Oscar Harding, UK/USA, 2022, DCP, 75′

When filmmaker Oscar Harding’s grandfather passed away in the rural English county of Somerset, his family inherited an extraordinary video tape – a feature-length home movie from neighbour Charles Carson, which can best be described as “Monty Python meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. On Coomb End Farm, Charles copes with the death of his parents, puts on skeleton tractor races and teaches the viewer all about cow birthing. A Life on the Farm is a celebration of an outsider artist, an unsung home-video pioneer and, believe it or not, the inventor of selfies.
“Try to imagine: it’s the year 1991. You live in a small farming community in rural England where your closest neighbor lives a short 10 miles down the road. Now imagine that your farmer neighbor is David Lynch, but instead of spending his free time making dark, surrealist Hollywood thrillers, he makes home movies just for you… /…/ A Life on the Farm is a celebration of a remarkable life not easily forgotten, and a love letter to found footage without having put pen to paper. The film is a well-needed refresher on the importance of amateur filmmaking.”
– Ahbra Perry, Fantastic Fest
“Attention, found-footage enthusiasts! Get ready to discover a real-life gem that’s equal parts morbid and hilarious, oddly endearing, and definitely stranger than fiction.”
– Alyssia Duval-Nguon, Fantasia Film Festival