Artist Michelle Williams Gamaker created a new piece for the Red Shoes: Beyond the Mirror (2023) exhibition, as part of Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger at the British Film Institute (BFI). Her short film Oberon (2023) commissioned by the BFI and responds to a photographic series in the BFI’s collection, taken at around the time that Korda was developing the script for The Red Shoes.
www.bfi.org.uk/features/red-shoes-moira-shearer-ballet-shoes-powell-pressburger
www.bfi.org.uk/features/red-shoes-moira-shearer-ballet-shoes-powell-pressburger
Following on from her BFI-commissioned short Oberon (2023), Strange Evidence will be the first film in Williams Gamaker’s new body of work on Fictional Healing which revisits the potential casting of Merle for British Directors’ Powell and Pressburger’s film The Red Shoes (1951).
Strange Evidence will see Williams Gamaker continue to expand her growing cast of fictional allies of 20th Century film stars, by focusing on the talent of Merle Oberon, 1930s screen star and Academy Award nominee. Merle kept her mixed heritage (Sri Lankan, Indian and British) a secret to protect her Industry status. To do so, she passed as white throughout her professional career. This meant a reliance on make-up and cosmetic procedures and an elaborate reconstruction of her past, invented her own fictitious methodology to conceal her identity.
Strange Evidence will see Williams Gamaker continue to expand her growing cast of fictional allies of 20th Century film stars, by focusing on the talent of Merle Oberon, 1930s screen star and Academy Award nominee. Merle kept her mixed heritage (Sri Lankan, Indian and British) a secret to protect her Industry status. To do so, she passed as white throughout her professional career. This meant a reliance on make-up and cosmetic procedures and an elaborate reconstruction of her past, invented her own fictitious methodology to conceal her identity.