Hurtle

Dancer Shona McCullagh’s award-winning debut short film offers a joyful fingers-up to gravity, dialogue, and the idea that nuns never get up to anything exciting. Two nuns flip twist and fly from bedside to beachside, turning a moving train carriage into a jungle gym (in-between desperately seeking solace from the call of nature). The footloose dance film did some travelling of its own: invited to over 30 festivals, including prestigious dance film festivals, and Edinburgh, Clermont-Ferrand, and Sundance (where it played before Kiwi feature Scarfies).

With film, I was interested to see if I could equal the pleasures of watching someone's weight ebb and flow in a live situation. I also really enjoy the notion of imprinting forever my choreography somehow and film was the obvious way to do that. It can be very sad just to continue to make work for live performance that is performed for a short time and then buried somewhere with no gravestone.

– Shona McCullagh, in a February 2005 Listener interview

Key Cast & Crew

Kelly Nash

As: Nun

Shona McCullagh

Choreography, Director, Concept

Taane Mete

As: Nun

Margaret Slater

Producer

David Long

Composer

John 'Armie' Armstrong

Camera