The Land Beneath Sleeps Lightly
Showing as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2025
See the Film
07 JUNE 2025 – 14 SEPT 2025
GALLERY 3 at the Open Eye Gallery , 19 Mann Island, Liverpool L3 1BP
The Land Beneath Sleeps Lightly
Set in the elaborately decorated bedrooms, hallways and ballrooms of the iconic Adelphi hotel in Liverpool and Co-created with Katarzyna Perlak, the film adopts a non-linear, poetically disorientating structure. Drawing on the aesthetic and affective language of horror – a genre resonant to both First Take and Katarzyna – to explore longing and Queer identity.
Once a popular destination for wealthy travellers en route to North America via Liverpool in the early twentieth century, the Adelphi has over the years, become home to countless stories, legends and myths. Building on these foundational narratives, the film reimagines the hotel as a vessel for memory, desire, mourning, and transformation. The film features predominantly actors and performers from Liverpool and was shot entirely on location with cast and crew from our own REEL Queer team. The film transforms this historic hotel into a place where fear, hope and joy all reside.
The Journey
In June 2024 First Take began its Reel Queer Art Filmmaking course with the aim of teaching and creating film for exhibition. As part of the course we started working alongside The Liverpool Biennial to create a piece for their 2025 theme of “Bedrock” and international artist Katarzyna Perlak who delights in working with liminal spaces, folk lore and has been widely exhibited including at the V&A Museum in London.
In our first sessions we focused on the difference between filmmaking and Art Film by looking at local exhibitions; Michelle Williams Gamaker’s”Our Mountains are Painted on Glass” at the Bluecoat was our first stop. The exhibition, in collaboration with Dahong Hongxuan Wang, centred around the work “Thieves”; a retelling of 1924 silent, black and white film “The Thief of Bagdad”, with the marginalised characters at the centre of the story. The space interweaved props with the films into spaces for sitting or opportunities to view costumes, props and even scripts in more detail as an added layer to the viewing experience.
Our second stop was FACT to see R.I.P Germain’s “After GOD, Dudus Comes Next!” an immersive installation that highlighted hidden worlds and gate kept spaces. Alongside, Sara Sadik’s “Xenon Palace Championship“ an interactive film and installation environment that reflected on belonging. Both exhibitions were in response to FACT’s theme of “Care” with very different interpretations.
After that it was time to start being creative, building collages of our own worlds and responding to everything we had seen to get our imaginations flowing and into the headspace of an Art Film.
Ideas Time!
Taking in all the inspiration from the exhibitions, it was now time to think of some ideas for our own Art Film. Our Reel Queer course participants worked with Katarzyna exchanging ideas of workflow, process, narrative, visuals and theme with many ideas stemming from their own creative practice and influences.
Writers Room
Working with the ideas put forward by Katarzyna and the group, a very strong theme of “Horror” emerged narratively and visually. By merging First Take’s narrative driven filmmaking with Katarzyna’s Visual Art film approach we divided the film into seven sections between writers who each focused on building some narrative and visual imagery, taking inspiration from our research and integrating the themes of belonging to a space and retelling narratives with our core horror theme. The final scene was then decided to be a culmination of all these ideas and narratives coming together.
Location
We knew location would play a massive part in creating the film and capturing the right energy. Katarzyna had previously visited Liverpool before, suggested the Adelphi hotel after falling in love with the aesthetic. Combining this with the theme of horror naturally took us to scoping it out as a filming location. We found that the hotel provided so much narrative and visual inspiration to the film while also linking back to our research of hidden worlds. There were so many forgotten rooms, secret doors and interesting spaces that provided the perfect backdrop to set our horror Art Film.
Sound Design
To shape the sound design, Ed interpreted the core themes: Bedrock, the Adelphi’s history, Liverpool’s history as a port city, horror, queerness, and Katarzyna’s artistic style, and blend them into a cohesive auditory world that supported the film’s overall visual style. At key moments, the film places particular emphasis on the heightened sounds of on-screen action. To achieve this, he had to build the sound entirely from scratch or carefully reconstruct it to individually mixed tracks; drawing attention to the action. The soundscape in the lobby, features a typewriter, piano, groups sewing and eating, ambient room noise, and background conversation, all of which was recreated through foley, except for the background chatter, which Ed captured on location between takes. On-site recordings were also manipulated such as lift mechanisms, corridor ambience, a vacuum cleaner collecting glass, and a trolley moving down a hallway; to reinforce scenes, intensify dramatic moments, and enrich sounds like the bedrock-like rumble that opens the film.
Music
At the start of the process the group discussions and conversations with Katarzyna provided early direction for the sonic palette: strings; yes, guitars; no, piano is welcome, but the accordion … not so much. In terms of feel it had to be uncomfortable, mysterious, debauched while also being broken, distorted and ancient in tone.
Once the narratives were formed, a ‘classical meets queer’ vibe began to suggest itself, and Ed started recording initial musical ideas before filming began.
With a rough edit of the film in place, he matched or reworked these ideas to fit the footage and was in regular contact with Katarzyna to ensure her vision and his own interpretation were aligned. As the edit became more concrete, additional music was in response to the style and pace of the new shots used.
Ed Bixter
Ed is a sound designer, composer, musician, and occasional writer/director of interactive audio experiences and installations, with work often exploring themes of science, technology, sci-fi, perception, systems, ethics, and disinformation. He began working with First Take as part of the REEL Queer programme in 2023 and became involved in this project as a participant of the Art Filmmaking course. To see more of his work visit www.sonicmutiny.co.uk
The Shoot
Finally it was time to shoot in February 2025. Working together with local Liverpool performers, our own Reel Queer community and Maria Joranko from Katarzyna’s previous films, we created a cast of ghoulish characters to fill our haunted hotel.
Post Production
After finishing the shoot, then came the edit! Katarzyna worked together with Liam Joelson from our Reel Queer programme to create the final cut now being shown at the Open Eye Gallery. Liam worked on the films colour grade using Divinci Resolve to create a workflow which brought an elevated horror aesthetic while still maintaining the Adelphi’s eerie feel. To see more of Liams work please take a look at their website https://joelsonmoore.co.uk/
Katarzyna Perlak
Polish born artist, based in London whose practice employs video, performance, textiles, sculpture and installation. Through her work Perlak employs a notion of ‘tender crafts’, exploring how crafts (heritage and traditions) can be revisited and re-imagined from contemporary feminist, queer and diasporic (migrant) perspectives. She engages ‘affective truths’ such as myths, tales, dreams, desires, collective memories, and seek to problematise how history is written and traditions are represented. View more of her work at www.katarzynaperlak.com
REEL Queer
Our team of local Queer filmmakers part of our REEL Queer programme which aims to bring industry level training to the LGBTQIA+ community. Find out more here!