Sharlene Bamboat
Single channel video, Stereo, 68 mins, 2021
Sound by Richy Carey
If From Every Tongue it Drips is a film that uses the framework of quantum physics to explore the ways that personal relationships and political movements at once transcend and challenge time, space, identity and location.
The film follows the lives of a couple living in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, one of whom writes Rekhti, a form of 19th century, Urdu, queer poetry; the other, her lover, the camera operator. As their personal lives unfold on camera, the lines between rehearsal and reality, location and distance, self and other dissipate and reinforce one another. Simultaneously, through poet and camera operator’s daily lives, interconnections between British colonialism, Indian nationalism and the impact of both on contemporary poetry, dance and music in South Asia is revealed.
Composed through the restrictions of COVID lockdowns, I worked remotely with Sharelne to conceptualise the film’s soundtrack through a long exchange of letters. As well as working with the location sound, I wrote a series of instruction scores that were performed by all the cast and crew at the same time across our varying locations around the world. Much of the soundtrack is composed from recordings made through these collaborative listening exchanges.