Eden Kötting

A Gallivant round St Leonards-on-Sea with Andrew Kötting

John Rogers takes a trip to St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex to go for a walk around this seaside town with the great filmmaker Andrew Kötting.

Diseased and Disorderly

Neuro-diverse artist Eden Kötting’s remarkable drawings, paintings and collages create an illusory, animated world where the rules change and everything is possible.

The Whalebone Box

From London to the far reaches of Scotland, the journey in the form of a quest for a whalebone box, related to its place of origin.

In Far Away Land

Back stroke butterfly, front crawl and bras, we are awash in an ocean of bubbles. Meanwhile Captain Ahab sets sail on his magic carpet in search of the whale. All is not well in the world but Eden is there, fresh from her garden, tuning into “The Far Away Land”. We are deep in the cloud of our own making but help is at hand, and everything might yet be alright.

What Can You See?

A video postcard: "Ubi amor ibi oculus" ("Where love is, there is insight").

Hand Me Down

Super 8 project for Coastal Currents 2017 by Hastings Film Makers and musicians. Produced by Mark French. Filmed in charity shops in Hastings & St Leonards, East Sussex UK. 1 roll of super 8 film 'everything' shot in camera. Eden wears her Jack-in-the Green costume and takes us into her inscape and hinterland.

Things Are Not as They Appear

The work might be seen as a mash-up of the films “It's All In The Mind”, “All At Sea”, “Combat - Black Apples” and “Bouyed By The Irrelevance Of Their Own Insignificance”. Drawings and paintings by Eden Kötting and animations by Glenn Whiting. The sound includes elements by Jem Finer and Buster Grey-Jung.

By Our Selves

Andrew Kötting's film retraces John Clare's journey from Epping Forest to Northamptonshire accompanied by a straw bear.

This Illuminated World Is Full of Stupid Men

Eden Kötting draws bright images on transparent glass, while talking with her dad about the world and the people who run it.

The Film That Buys the Cinema

A collection of films from an eclectic array of contributors commissioned to raise funds for the Bristol independent cinema The Cube.

The Sun Came Dripping a Bucket Full of Gold

At the threshold of the last mystery you have looked into the eyes of your creature self and watched the sun come dripping a bucket full of gold.

Artefact #5: Swandown – Culled from a Waterbound Journey from Hastings to Hackney

Each piece was edited from material that was from the SWANDOWN shoot and named Artefacts 1-5.

Artefact #4: Swandown – Culled from a Waterbound Journey from Hastings to Hackney

Each piece was edited from material that was from the SWANDOWN shoot and named Artefacts 1-5.

Bunhill Fields Artefact: Swandown – Culled from a Waterbound Journey from Hastings to Hackney

Each piece was edited from material that was from the SWANDOWN shoot and named Artefacts 1-5.

Louyre: This Our Still Life

A deliciously eccentric, yet touching portrait of director Andrew Kotting's daughter Eden as a young woman in their tumbledown Pyrennean farmhouse. Last seen in Gallivant (1996) as a plucky kid touring the coastline of Britain with her Big Granny, Eden, now 23, is here shown painting still lifes and singing along to the radio as the seasons ebb and flow around her. Reminiscent of Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man, this lo-fi marvel features music by Scanner's Robin Rimbaud and a range of voices from Kotting's sound archive to explore notions of nostalgia, memory and place.

Portrait of Eden

Filmed over the course of a week in October 2010, the film captures the everyday life of its Joubert syndrome-suffering protagonist, taking in her daily routines of work, play, and therapy, whilst also capturing her admirable joie de vivre against the backdrop of her loving family life.

Offshore (Gallivant)

Beginning in the pitch-black early hours of a September morning, the film follows a 14hr 17min cross-channel relay swim that I made along with my brothers Mark and Joey, a friend Ian Dale, the actor and comedian Sean Lock (Smart Alek and co-writer of This Filthy Earth) and the actor Tchili (This Filthy Earth and Ivul). The attempt was witnessed by the writer and wordsmith Iain Sinclair and is narrated by Eden Kötting. The film came about in 2006 (the 10 year anniversary since the release of the original film Gallivant) and the chance discovery of a boat called The Gallivant, which offered to shadow us across the Channel as a support vessel. Flotsam and jetsam in the form of conversations, field recordings and the voices of Gladys and Eden from the original film invade. The film shows scenes of explicit vomiting.

In the Wake of a Deadad

In the Wake of a Deadad is Kötting's powerful, often uncomfortable reflection on the recent death of his father. His Deadad.

Mapping Perception

A documentary examining the causes and effects of Joubert syndrome – a rare hereditary brain disorder, which affects both the motor and intellectual development of its sufferers.

Gallivant

Part home movie, part road movie, Kötting's riveting and eccentric film stars his 85-year-old grandmother Gladys - opinionated, bursting with anecdotes and contradictory reminiscences – and Eden, his eight-year-old daughter with Joubert syndrome, as they take a zig-zagging 6,000 mile trip in their campervan around Britain's coastline.