Paint Drying (2023)

Directed by

Charlie Shackleton

Genre

documentary film, independent film, silent film, experimental film, protest, non-narrative film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

10h 07m

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A ten hour shot of white paint drying on a brick wall. The filmmaker made it to protest British film censorship and the costs of getting movies classified.

boringminimalistexperimentalslow-burnabsurdstaticdeadpansatiricalprotest

What happens

Paint Drying is a 2023 British experimental protest film that was produced, directed and shot by Charlie Shackleton. He created the film in 2016 to protest against film censorship in the United Kingdom and the sometimes prohibitive cost to independent filmmakers which the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) classification requirement imposes. The film consists of 607 minutes (10 hours and 7 minutes) of a static view of white paint drying on a brick wall. Shackleton made the film to force the BBFC to watch all ten hours to give the film an age rating classification. He initially shot 14 hours' worth of footage of paint drying in 4K resolution and opened a Kickstarter campaign to pay the BBFC's per-minute rate for a film as long as possible. It raised £5,936 from 686 backers. After reviewing the film, the BBFC rated it 'U' for 'Universal', indicating "no material likely to offend or harm". Paint Drying had its first public screening at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia, between 10–29 November 2023 as part of the Cinema Obstructed film exhibition—for which Shackleton was co-curator. As of February 2024, the film has not yet been released theatrically nor made publicly available online. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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