Al & Al’s film exploring the life of Alan Turing, The Creator, has won the Prix du Jury at the Utopiales International Festival of Science Fiction 2013. The 45-minute film was co-commissioned by Cornerhouse and Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival in 2012, the centenary of Turing’s birth.
The Creator explores the legendary myth of the father of the computer age and maker of AI (artificial intelligence) machines Turing, who was based at The University of Manchester. Combining Lynchian nightmare with the prophetic themes of J.G. Ballard, the film takes the viewer into the surreal dreamworld of the visionary scientist, where his binary children embark upon a mystical quest to discover their origins and destiny in the universe. It was described by the Guardian as “A mesmeric, hallucinatory meditation”.
Al Holmes and Al Taylor, better known as Al & Al, have written, directed and produced films including Eternal Youth (2008), which celebrated Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, Anaglyph Avatar (2009), a series of 3D optical films for which they won the Liverpool Art Prize, and Icarus at the Edge of Time (2010), a collaboration which included Philip Glass. They are now producing The Creator, the feature film.
The Creator was produced by Cornerhouse’s Bren O’Callaghan, Abandon Normal Devices and Creative England (previously as Vision + Media). Bren O’Callaghan’s next film production, Rough Cut by conceptual artist Jamie Shovlin (a Cornerhouse Artist Film), will premiere at Cornerhouse on Fri 29 November and goes on general release from Fri 6 December.