Video editor needed for utopian road movie
 
The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (www.labofii.net) is looking for an experienced editor to finish the film part of its  Paths Through Utopias project (www.utopias.eu).
 
The Lab of ii:
Infamous for fermenting mass prayers to consumption in shopping malls, touring the UK recruiting a rebel clown army, running courses in postcapitalist culture, throwing snowballs at bankers, launching a rebel raft regatta to shut down a coal fired power station and falling in love with utopias, The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (Lab of ii) is not an institution or a group, not a network or an NGO, but an affinity of friends who recognise the beauty of collective disobedience and the role of culture in radical social change. We treat insurrection as an art and art as a means of preparing for the coming insurrection. (www.labofii.net). The Lab is presently based in London, UK.
 
 
The project:
Paths Through Utopias took us on a seven month journey (2007-8) across Europe in search of ways of living despite capitalism, visiting numerous alternative communities ranging from a permaculture settlement to an occupied factory, a free love commune to Climate Camp. From this journey we are publishing a book/film, a book which comes packaged with a film within it. The book/film will initially be published in France by La Decouverte (http://www.editionsladecouverte.fr/) in autumn 2010 and later in the UK. It will also be toured in 2011.
 
Whilst the book is a piece of travel writing about the experience the film is a documentary fiction in the form of a post crash road movie, shot in the places visited but set in the future. The book and the film are seen as a dialogue between present and future, fact and imagination.
 
The film is especially influenced by William Morris' 19th Century novel a vision of a post-capitalist decentralised ecological Utopia, News from Nowhere. This classic of Utopian literature is a sumptuous journey which propels us into an imagined future; a future which, thanks to the richness of its description, feels as actual and possible as the present. In this spirit, the film takes the form of a "fake" documentary exploring a fictional era following a global ecological-economic collapse.  It describes a post capitalist/oil age Europe, and proposes the existence of a decentralised autonomous society that has slowly evolved out of the ruins of a systemic crash.
 
Shot in the actual places and communities visited with characters living there, playing themselves, the film shows these places as projects that have survived a collapse, thanks to their self sufficiency and autonomy from market systems, and portrays these contemporary "Utopias" as "normal" rather than "alternative" ways of living. We have are not follow traditional documentary genres; our references can be found in the more experimental work of Agn s Varda (The Gleaners), Patrick Keiler (Robinson in Space), Andrew Kotting (Gallivant) Chris Marker (L Ambassade) or Robert Kramer (Route One).
 
The Job:
A years worth of work - logging, transcribing, translating and writing has already taken place on the film. Unfortunately our editor fell seriously ill and is now unable to continue working on the project. We are looking for someone who can pick up where we left off but who is also able to add their creativity into the project and take it to completion in July 2010.
 
Ideally you are someone who has good experience editing feature length film/video, and have worked in both genres of documentary and fiction. You are open to experimental forms of film, collective working methods and share our anti-capitalist politics.
 
Experienced in Final Cut Pro is required. If you can speak Spanish and/or French this is an added bonus as parts of the film are in these languages.
 
The Lab is based in Bethnal Green London you can work from there or at a location of your choosing. The deadline is very tight and so we are looking for someone who can begin in February (ish) and work to the deadline of July. We can offer a modest fee of £2000.
 
You will be mostly working with artistsactivist John Jordan but will also occasionally with activistresearcher Isa Fremeuax and composer/sound artist Isa Suarez (http://www.isasuarez.com/).
 
How to apply:
Please email us a cover letter stating why you are interested, what experience you have and when you can begin work on the project. Enclose a CV with the letter and links to past work/ show reels etc. (if you wish to send a DVD send it to JJ,  110 Teesdale St, London E2 6PU.) Please include one reference from a recent relevant job.
 
Email your application to john@labofii.net by Sunday 17th January 5pm deadline for application. There will be an informal meeting with appropriate applicants and we will be able to inform you of our decision by Monday 25th of January.
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