Self Made

Winner of the prestigious Turner Prize in 1997, in her film-directorial debut, British artist Gillian Wearing involves seven people from among the hundreds who answered her ad: “Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character. Call Gillian”, in 2007. After three weeks of intense group preparations in Newcastle, led by acting coach Sam Rumbelow, each participant gave birth to a character, producing his own personal “final scene”. Five of them are an integral part of the film, which interweaves reality and fiction according to the artist’s typical operative methodology, which she herself defines as “editing life’’. The film is, all at once, “a documentary, an art work and a social experiment”. It documents the most significant moments of the internal and creative courses taken by the protagonists, all of them non-professional actors, exploring the various unpredictable, shattering conclusions with them.