In an Ideal World I'd Not be Murdered
In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered is a poetry film collection. Written by Chaucer Cameron, it’s both a fictional and re-enacted story, and contains fragments of memory from London’s underworld of prostitution in the 1980s. Told in 12 poems and 3 voices.
About
Poetry film, in similar ways to written poetry, is an ideal vehicle to express the non-linear, fractured nature of memory and in particular traumatic memory. Memory that is fragmented and ambiguous and not necessarily experienced in a linear, time specific way - even though some moments may be remembered in acute detail. This poetry film collection contains those fragments of memory from a life once lived in prostitution - told in twelve poems, 3 voices, one city. Poetry film is also a perfect form for telling personal histories. It can present situations that repeat or change, can switch from light to dark, and can bear a burden that sometimes seems impossible.
Prostitution is often depicted as a spectacle. What’s not represented enough, particularly in film, is the mundane. The mundane together with the constant stress of anticipation. So, I wanted the film not to screech ‘this is my traumatised, victimised body’, but more simply ‘these are my wounds, my ordinary body wounds’. Prostitution narratives often end in some kind of triumph or rescue, but life is more nuanced, and can’t be neatly captured, it’s often not quite legible. The realities for anyone in these situations are constantly gaslit by others who tell a different story or who don’t allow them to tell their own stories. The realities expressed in this poetry film-collection are ongoing. The end leaves the living and the dead side by side. It’s not concluded, the narrator is ‘hooked’ – somewhere, somehow, we are not told.
Comments
‘A stunning poetry film that takes Chaucer Cameron’s devastating poems about a life lived in prostitution and adds startlingly apt images – a moth battering at a window to denote terror, a restless, seething Thames that is transient yet holds the memory of all the trauma it has witnessed over centuries – before offering the viewer some sort of redemption with the tender sequence of a murdered woman being painted back into existence. If you’ve ever wrestled with the question of what poetry films are for, here’s Dewbery’s emphatic vindication of their worth. Unforgettable. A masterpiece.’
- Deborah Harvey, poet
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Powerful, mesmerising, heartbreaking… It's brave, risky but also welcoming, asking the viewer to share and understand the narrator's world, albeit briefly.
- Sue Burge, writer, mentor, tutor
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‘How does a filmmaker interpret poetry which is challenging or focuses on trauma? The poetry film collaboration between Helen Dewbery and Chaucer Cameron of ‘In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered’ is a masterclass in how to do this. Helen's deep understanding of Chaucer's stark and stunning poetry of the lived experience of sex working takes a nuanced approach. Rather than giving us provocative images Helen choses bus stops, street corners and grass verges, but imbues them with foreboding. Silences, blurred music and distortion mirror the way memory of trauma is revisited and fragmented through time. Whose voice narrates the poems? The living survivor or the woman found dead in an alley? There are no happy endings here or resolutions but a strong sense of witness and lives that need to be revealed.’
- Lucy English, Professor of Creative Enterprise, Bath Spa University
‘I just wanted to say how much I was moved by the experience of seeing you film and to thank you for bringing to the world such a tender, delicate and utterly authentic depiction. I keep on coming back to certain scenes that have lodged themselves in my mind. I believe that you have produced a work of Art like no other I have ever witnessed. Your film is so important and should be watched by everyone.’
- Jessie Currie, filmmaker
‘A beautiful, powerful marriage of words and images.’
- Richard Skinner​
Credits:
Written by Chaucer Cameron
Film, sound design and edited by Helen Dewbery
Voices - Kim Hicks, Chaucer Cameron, Jon White.
Music – Sarah R., Suzie Self, Simon Jomphe Lepine, Kevin Macleod
Sketch – Bea Colborne
(Poems were originally published by Against the Grain Press, and I Am Not A Silent Poet.)
Specifications
• Runtime: In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered 32 minutes 35 seconds
• Completion Date: Nov 28, 2023
• Country of Origin and filming: United Kingdom
• Language: English
• Shooting Format: Digital
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• Film Colour: Colour