Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
A nearly inescapable fact of modern life is that most of us spend more time in just a few rooms in our homes than the sum of time spent anywhere else on Earth – and perhaps doubly so over the past year of pandemic-related lockdowns. And so, unsurprisingly, our spaces also tend to occupy a rather prominent place in our minds. Do they need a clean? A redecoration? To be ditched for a new arrangement altogether? And what – good, bad and ugly – do they reveal about us to visitors? Featuring clever animated sequences in which talking, shifting shapes transform along to the reflective words of interviewees, Rooms explores how the mental and physical spaces of our rooms intersect and overlap.
Director: Rohan Patrick McDonald
Website: Shelf Shelf
video
Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
video
Wellbeing
Children of the Rwandan genocide face a unique stigma 30 years later
20 minutes
video
Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
video
Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
video
War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
video
Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes
video
Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes
video
Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes
video
History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes