THE PARALLEL COAST by John Ledingham | Canada (2024)
A travelogue in stillness, a journal in offhand memory, and a parable of the map and the territory inspired by Cormac McCarthy. Shot in BC, California, and Nevada. With original music by Tashi Townley, Jack Brintnell, Luc Wiebe, and George Lee. 2022-2024.
Director Statement
The images that comprise “The Parallel Coast” were not shot with an end goal in mind. The concept of an inner map for outer space came to me from Douglas Hofstadter’s “Godel Escher Bach”, a nonfiction favorite of my girlfriend and I for reading aloud on long drives and surf trips. Later, reading Borges the concept of one’s autobiography as a labyrinth took the forefront of my mind as something to be explored with film, and maybe specifically these odd scraps I had collecting dust (and taking on a new alien strangeness) on my harddrives. The Parallel Coast is a personal collage film that can hopefully evoke themes of place, memory, and inner space in people far removed from myself. The desert and oceanic landscapes are offered as meditations, while the parable-monologue inspired by a scene in Cormac McCarthy’s “The Crossing” speaks the film’s thematic core over a long illusory scene of a figure disappearing across the shores of Walker Lake, NV.
Bio
John Ledingham is a Victoria BC filmmaker working in music videos, concert films, and no-budget documentary.
Director: John Ledingham Narrator: John Ledingham Music: The Thunes by Jack Brintnell and Luc Wiebe Diploids by Luc Wiebe and George Lee Sound: Tashi Townley
Pebbles Underground is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved.
Pebbles Underground is an independent project not funded by any government or corporation, and we intend to keep it that way. Main source of funding is personal donations from humans organizing the project, who are artists themselves, and the main drive of the project is formed by the energy and involvement of the organizers, and the public.
