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Anything Could Happen Here: The Making of Pinocchio

Cade & MacAskill

A double-bill screening of The Making of Pinocchio (2021) and No words (2021)

Cade & MacAskill look up at a tall structure that is similar to a tree
Photo by Niall Walker

Alchemy Film & Arts presents a one-off, double-bill screening of The Making of Pinocchio: Digital Edition (2021), Glasgow-based artists and lovers Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill‘s autobiographical exploration of Ivor’s gender transition, preceded by No Words (2021), a short film created as part of Alchemy’s Film Town programme by Borders-based young people to articulate the pluralities of queer existence.

Both films utilise an experimental approach to convey deeply personal messages around identity and society’s perceptions of queer bodies. Audiences are invited to attend a live podcast recording after the screening, at which the filmmakers will be present to discuss the joys, challenges and complexities of trans cinema.

In a forest of real wood and fake wood, and real fake wood, and fake real wood, join the cast, crew and creators as they construct Pinocchio over and over again, shaking the boundaries between possible and impossible, reality and fantasy. Turning wood into flesh, boys into donkeys, and making that nose grow… the tricks of the trade will be revealed before your very eyes.

Artists and lovers Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill have been creating The Making of Pinocchio since 2018, alongside and in response to Ivor’s gender transition. Glimpsed through a fictionalised making process, the artists’ real autobiographical experience meets the magical story of the little lying puppet who wants to be a real boy.

Enter a world of wildly queer utopic imaginings, conjured in a click and lock landscape where everything can change, and everything can connect.

The Making of Pinocchio: Digital Edition was designed as a special one-off digital performance, filmed in one take at Tramway (Glasgow) and first streamed online at Take Me Somewhere Festival May 2021. It also exists as a live performance that will tour from Spring 2022.

Nominated for the Off West End Awards’ Best IDEA Production (IDEA: Innovative / Devised / Experiential / Atypical)

★★★★ ‘The wondrous trans tale of Pinocchio… A funny, clever and thoughtful two-hander, rich in playful imagery and direct-to-camera asides, about identity, definition and acceptance… The satire is gentle, but the politics are clear.’

The Guardian

★★★★ ‘More than anything, The Making of Pinocchio testifies to an evolving, continually transforming love between partners, a love for making things and oneself.’ 

The Stage

‘It was so beautiful, and such deft balancing of things for trans audiences and things for cis ones. Also, I never cry with joy at things but I did at the ending of it, and I’m crying now thinking about it… it was just so beautiful… a very joyful watch… and such deft balancing of things for trans audiences and things for cis ones… it’s so rare.’ 

Audience response

‘The duo hold the audience with a brand of mischievous humour that’s provocative and reassuring in equal measure.’ Exeunt

Cade & MacAskill are Rosana Cade (they/them) and Ivor MacAskill (he/him): renowned queer artists and facilitators based in Glasgow, Scotland. Their work, together and individually, straddles the worlds of experimental contemporary theatre, live art, queer cabaret, film, children’s performance, site specific, and socially engaged practices. 

Their collaboration is born from a shared love of subversive humour, experimentation with persona and text, playful theatricality, and the joy they find in improvising together. They also share a passion for LGBTQIA+ rights and culture. They create strange, full aesthetic worlds on stage, with unique sonic elements embedded into their work due to ongoing collaboration with sound artist and designer Yas Clarke.

They are both experienced facilitators and trained volunteers with LGBT Youth (Glasgow). They are currently in the process of setting up a co-operative to open a new LGBTQIA+ secondhand shop / community space in Glasgow.

cademacaskill.com
@cademacaskill

Commissioned by Fierce Festival, Kampnagel, Tramway & Vooruit.
Produced by Artsadmin.
Funded by Creative Scotland, Arts Council England and Rufolf Augstein Stiftung with development support from The Work Room/Dianne Torr Bursary, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, National Theatre of Scotland, Live Art Development Agency, Gessnerellee, Mousonturm, Forest Fringe, West Kowloon Cultural District & LGBT Health & Wellbeing Scotland.

Created and performed by Rosana Cade & Ivor MacAskill
Set, Prop & Costume Designer: Tim Spooner
Sound Designer: Yas Clarke
Lighting Designer & Production Manager: Jo Palmer
Cinematographer: Kirstin McMahon
Producer: Mary Osborn for Artsadmin
Technical Stage Manager: Sorcha Stott-strzala
Outside Eye: Nic Green
Captioning: Collective Text; Emilia Beatriz, Daniel Hughes with Rosana Cade, Yas Clarke, Ivor MacAskill, and Jamie Rea

  • Descriptive subtitles in English
  • BSL Interpreter present for introduction and panel discussion
  • Wheelchair accessible.

Date and time

30 July 2022
6.30pm

Please note
This is now a past event.

Venue

Heart of Hawick Cinema
Hawick
TD9 0AE
UK

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