Dear Bees

My Hive Mind

Dir: David & Nell Thomas, 2022, 19mins, UK

‘My Hive Mind’ tells the story of a year with inspirational Hastings’ beekeeper Katharine O'Brien. Through Katharine we learn to share her love of the bees and get a fascinating glimpse into their lives. But when tragedy befalls the hives Katharine questions everything...

‘My Hive Mind’ was made by Hastings based filmmakers Dave & Nell Thomas, husband and wife documentary makers who spent almost a year filming with Katharine. Looking for a story to reconnect them with nature following 18 months of lockdown, they found Katharine and immediately began to share her love of the bees.

David Thomas will be in conversation with Katharine.

Katharine is the founder of Bee Potion Community Interest Company. As a bee-keeper she challenges conventional forms of beekeeping; "When we think it took approximately 12 bees to make a teaspoon of real honey, within my own practice I strive to find ways that support sustainable and ethical forms of working with bees and nature."

I Am Bee

Dir: David & Nell Thomas, 2022, 7mins, UK. Narrated by Katharine O'Brien. Music by Tullis Rennie.

An immersive bee's-eye-view film and soundscape transports you through the lifecycle of a bee.

Laline Paull reads from her novel 'The Bees'

The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut novel. Laline Paull's chilling yet ultimately triumphant novel creates a luminous world both alien and uncannily familiar. Thrilling and imaginative, The Bees is the story of a heroine who changes her destiny and her world. The Bees is translated into over twenty languages and is currently in development for The National Theatre.

Followed by conversation with David (Director of My Hive Mind), Katharine (Bee keeper) and Laline (writer) about what we can learn from the natural world (beginning with bees/beekeeping) about the processes of creativity and collaboration.

Working to Beat the Devil

Dir: Chu-Li Shewring & Adam Gutch, 2014, 24mins, UK

An ageing scientist, troubled and confused by remembrances from his past, toils night and day to (re-) discover secrets to the creation of life. The creature, struggling for existence in the natural world, journeys unceasingly to find its creator.

Composed using fictional, archival and documentary material, the film interweaves semi-biographical elements from the hermetic life of Guy Shewring (the scientist) with an imagined world of his past and future, in which science becomes fiction.
Conjuring up Shelley’s 'Frankenstein', the natural history films of Jean Painlevé, and speaking in the words of Darwin, the film instils a quiet yet powerful sense of wonder in rediscovering the wild shapes of nature.

Chu-Li and Adam live on the Isle of Wight, and often take inspiration from uncanny aspects of the natural world, and the people and creatures who inhabit these environments. They combine non-fiction and fictional approaches in their films. Chu-Li’s sound design credits include Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008), Robinson in Ruins (Patrick Keiller, 2010), Two Years at Sea (Ben Rivers, 2011) and The Falling (Carol Morley, 2014).

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