Rose Lowder

Born in 1941, the French filmmaker Rose Lowder travelled the world from an early age after her parents' work. Later on her studies took her between Lima, London and Paris.

Educated as a painter and a sculptor, she moved on to filmmaking in 1976 with encouragement from Jean Rouch. She had gathered experience in filmmaking in the 1960's, when she worked as an assistant editor for the BBC to pay for her studies.

Lowder's works have a markedly handcrafted feel to them and her films are loaded with sensitivity. She is considered to be one of the most innovative characters in structural film. She calls her technique, in which she shoots films frame by frame, as "knitting inside a camera".

The films in her Bouquets-series make up the core of her oeuvre. They are impressionistic 60 second documentaries about places she has particular interest in. These include shots from organic farms and macrobiotic centers in France, Switzerland and Italy. Voiliers et coquelicots provides powerful romanticism from Marseille in the form of boats and poppies. In Les tournesols we see sunflowers wobbling with every frame having a slightly different focus point in a static landscape.

Jardin du soleil and Sous le soleil reflect in the blinking of solar panels. Jardins du Marais is a tremoring momental lapse from the Loire-Atlantique natural park while  Rien d' extraordinaire takes us to the garden of a Swiss hotel. Habitat is simply a film about frogs and Jardin du sel depicts the manufacturing of sea salt. The final episode Sources has an organic farmer's vegetable paté in the starring role.

Docpoint | Mika Taanila, Juha Nurminen