Circle in the Sand
46 min / Super16mm on HD / 2012In a broken near future, a band of listless vagabonds ambles across a war-torn coastal territory, supervised and sorted by a group of idle soldiers. Rummaging, stuttering, and smashing through the leftovers of Western culture, these ragged souls conjure an unstable magic, fueled by their own apathy and the poisonous histories imbedded in their unearthed junk. Suspicion, boredom, garbage, and glamour conspire in the languid pageantry of ruin. Feel the breeze in your hair, and the world crumbling through your fingers.Filmed in Northern California and Central New York, with performances by Julia Austin, Rachel Bernstein, Hajera Ghori, Douglas Martin, James McHugh, Gennaro Panarello, and Chad Southard, with costumes and sets by Dana Carter. Supported by The Wexner Center Film/Video Residency Award, Circle in the Sand is a project of Creative Capital.
Press:
FILM THREAT review
SCREEN SLATE review
BROOKLYN RAIL review
REVERSE SHOT review
INDIEWIRE review
BOMB interview
FRIEZE review
VISUAL ART SOURCE review
4:3 interview
THE QUEER REVIEW best-of-decade list
MUBI best-of-decade list
LUCID DREAMING interview
“Michael Robinson’s Circle in the Sand invokes the cosmos with generous throws of glitter. With a strikingly costumed cast wandering the post-apocalypse, the film plays like a zonked L’Avventura (1960). Three sparkle-eyed women walk the California coast, while a forlorn troupe of military men wait on patrol. The ladies unearth misbegotten artifacts of a forgotten world in the sand: anonymous Yelp reviews, skipping Counting Crows CDs, and dayglo nails are just the beginning. Stretching beyond the short format, Robinson’s imagination remains prodigious in the particulars. The credo bookending the film—‘We wanted to destroy knowledge but from within knowledge’—does nicely as a description for the collagist’s quixotic task.”-Max Goldberg, Keyframe/FandorKAZUKO TRUST AWARD - 2012 NYFFJURY PRIZE - 2013 Ann Arbor Film FestivalFULL EXHIBITION HISTORYRENT: VIDEO DATA BANKEDITION OF 5: CARRIE SECRIST GALLERY