Hexham Heads

Tinted by the red safelight of the darkroom, the film (re)constructs a breathless pastoral horror about a place crystallised in time and terrorised by two 6cm tall stone heads whose current location remains unknown. We visit Rede Avenue – the original source of this supernatural energy – through the shivery stillness of Chloë Delanghe’s grainy photographs and an erratic composition of Sam Comerford performed by an ensemble of musicians across Ireland and Belgium. In Hexham Heads the joint mysteries of photosensitivity and the stone tape theory – which speculates on how minerals can record and replay the energy of hauntings – create a volatile chemical reaction. Delanghe and Driesen defy the impossibility of capturing ghosts in the lens by immersing us in a psychogeographical journey through infinite doors, windows and passages. Ane Lopez

In 1971, a family living in the town of Hexham was plagued by a series of paranormal events. After bringing a pair of small stone heads into their home, the family became terrorized by the ghostly sounds and images these objects exerted. Hexham Heads adopts an impressionistic approach to this contemporary folk tale.

Using the story as a point of departure, the film guides us through a multitude of spaces in which time and matter become still-frozen, stretched, and repeated. A darkroom, an apartment, a house, a warehouse for construction materials, are all connected and portrayed through the spectral lens of photography.

The film is a collaboration between Chloë Delanghe and Mattijs Driesen.