The Souvenir: Part II

Filmmaker Joanna Hogg used experiences from her own life in the semi-autobiographical The Souvenir, about film student Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) and her troubled – not to say self-destructive – relationship with an older man. Mother Rosalie (Tilda Swinton) warned her daughter, who disregarded all her good advice.

Three years later, the sequel, featuring Tilda Swinton and Honor Swinton Byrne again in the mother and daughter roles, was completed. In part two, Julie looks back on the love affair that made her so unhappy. She puts her experiences to use in her graduation film.

The two parts of The Souvenir are a typical Hogg production: a meta reflection on how life takes its shape in film and a portrait of the ‘artist a a young woman’. This includes the (cyclical) fact that, as a film student in the late 1970s, Hogg shot a graduation film starring none other than... Tilda Swinton.

Caprice

The film Julie is making, Caprice (1986, 26'), is also Joanna Hogg's actual graduation film, which is screened before The Souvenir: Part II. Caprice is about the pressure the advertising world puts on a young woman to meet beauty standards. Tilda Swinton plays a young woman, who magically gets sucked into the pages of her favourite fashion magazine. Joanna Hogg: ‘I wanted to embrace the contradiction I felt as a young woman who loved fashion magazines, but also understood the dark side of what they can mean to someone who desperately wanted to be accepted.’

Joanna Hogg Retrospective

From 8 January through 4 February, Eye will highlight the oeuvre of British photographer, screenwriter, and filmmaker Joanna Hogg. During these four weeks, all of Joanna Hogg's films will be screened.

Hogg will visit Eye for two talks: on 27 January, a special evening dedicated to her working methods, inspirations, and collaborations will take place. Using excerpts from her films, ranging from her earliest (previously unseen) cinematic experiments to her most contemporary work, recurring themes in her work will be explored. Her first and last short films will also be screened.

On 28 January, a conversation between Tilda Swinton and Joanna Hogg will go into how their lives, particularly the relationship between mothers and daughters, influenced the films they made together, such as The Souvenir and The Eternal Daughter. On 28 January, Swinton and Hogg will introduce a screening of The Souvenir.