Midst of Paradise

A night in the life of a girl on the town...

Colour
35mm stills
4 minutes
2003
Filmed in Brighton in February 2003

This project was inspired by two quotes, the first by punk legend Henry Rollins

“Those who are pigs in the midst of paradise… I will never understand it. Those people [who don’t appreciate life], yeah, I’ve got contempt for them because they infringe upon my freedom.

But by and large I reckon we are all just trying to get through it.”

And the second is from the Bible, Revelations 2:7

"To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God which is now in heaven”

I lived for a short time in Brighton and wanted to document my time there in a short film. It was a very exciting, intense time of my life but ultimately quite creatively shallow and empty and I wanted to explore this.

Issue 29 (Volume 5 Number 5) of Film Int magazine has a review of Midst of Paradise which you can now read here.

Cast

The Blonde......Joanna Shaw

Composer
Specimen A

Directed, Edited, Written and Produced by
Jo Barnes