Directed by Grant Gee
A richly textured essay film on landscape, art, history, life and loss, Patience (After Sebald) offers a unique exploration of the work and influence of internationally acclaimed writer W.G. Sebald (1944 - 2001).
Born in Wertach im Allgau, Germany in 1944, W.G. Sebald studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland and Manchester, England. In 1966 he took up a position as an assistant lecturer at the University of Manchester, and settled permanently in England in 1970. It was at the University of East Anglia, where he was working as a Professor of European Literature, that Sebald at the age of 46 completed his first book, "Vertigo." It went on to receive generous praise and notice. But it wasn't until the publication of his second book, "The Emigrants" in 1992, a winner of numerous major prizes, that Sebald was propelled to the heights of international acclaim.
Sebald followed up these works with the equally revered and awarded "The Rings of Saturn" and "Austerlitz." He died in an automobile accident in Norfolk, England, near his home in Norwich in East Anglia, England, on December 14, 2001. Today, he is widely regarded as one of the most important post-War European authors, and his work has proved decisively influential on many artists, writers and filmmakers.
Directed by the Grierson Award winning director of Joy Division and the Radiohead documentary Meeting People is Easy, Patience is the first film on this important and vital writer. The film is structured around a walk through coastal East Anglia, the same path followed by Sebald in his ground-breaking book, "The Rings of Saturn," and includes contributions from major writers, artists and filmmakers, including Adam Philips, Robert Macfarlane, Rick Moody and Tacita Dean.
Reviews
~ "A hauntingly original piece of literary criticism¡ A must-see for fans and a welcome introduction for the curious." - A.O. Scott, The New York Times
~ "A worthy tribute to an unclassifiable masterpiece, Patience (After Sebald) is an homage that avoids the traps of slavish imitation. It's less an adaptation of 'The Rings of Saturn' than an expansion of it ¡ª and not just that, less a feat of literary criticism than something more elusive, a film that uses the tools of cinema to evoke the experience and the pleasure of reading." - LA Times
~ "Patience is not in any simple sense "about" The Rings of Saturn . It is about the experience of reading The Rings of Saturn " . - Artforum
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