Peter Snowdon is a British filmmaker based in Belgium, whose work combines documentary process with formal experimentation and collaborative modes of storytelling. His films have been widely shown at international festivals (Turin, Edinburgh, Bratislava…), as well as in museum spaces such as the Palazzo Grassi (Venice) and the Villa Arson (Nice).
His feature-length documentary The Uprising (2013) had its North American premiere at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as part of their Documentary Fortnight, as did – one year later – the short film, We Are Going to Record (2014), made in collaboration with the Peruvian anthropologist Juan Javier Rivera Andìa.
The Uprising was acclaimed as "a bold, epoch-defining leap forward in doc method" by found footage guru Craig Baldwin, who awarded it the Opus Bonum Award for best world documentary on its premiere in Jihlava (Czech Republic). It was greeted by indie legend Jon Jost as “kind of a masterpiece”, and in 2020 was described by J.Hoberman, writing in the New York Times, as “one of the great movies of the still-young 21st century”.
His book-length essay, inspired by the making of the film, The People Are Not an Image: Vernacular Video after the Arab Spring, was published by Verso Books (New York / London) in September 2020.
Peter studied with Malcolm Le Grice in the Master in Transmedia programme at LUCA School of Arts, and went on to gain a practice-based doctorate in visual art from the University of Hasselt. Between 2014 and 2018 he taught filmmaking full time, first at the University of the West of Scotland, and then in the visual ethnography programme at Leiden University.
As an educator, his central interest is in helping aspiring filmmakers develop a more fully embodied approach to their practice, through the convergence of practical exploration and critical reflection. To do this, he draws on his own ongoing training in a range of somatic practices, including Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method, and Continuum Movement. He owes a lot to the practice of live improvisation, and is particularly grateful that he was able to study directly with the dancer Mary Overlie during the last years of her life. His teaching style is always experiential, whether the focus of that experience is on moving, looking or thinking.
Peter is an associate researcher at MAD-PXL School of Arts (Hasselt), where he is a member of the editorial board of the journal Collateral for which he co-convenes the series Conversations on conversations.
He is currently working on a documentary film around the live electonic performance piece Tesla (2022) created by his friend the composer Hervé Birolini.
In 2022, Peter qualified as a practitioner of craniosacral biodynamics. For more on his bodywork practice, please go here.
To contact Peter the filmmaker and writer, click here.