James Clayden, described by Adrian Martin at this year's Rotterdam Film Festival as 'one of Australia's best kept artistic secrets', returns to MIFF following the screening of his highly acclaimed Ghost Paintings series in 2003. His latest audiovisual collage is a meditation in image and sound on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Employing a symphonic structure, this latest UFO (Unidentified Filmed Object) from Clayden is a haunting and atmospheric work.

Unconcerned with narrative constraints, the 'plot' of Hamlet X is both brief and almost incidental to Clayden's motives: a man (Tom Wright) is released from prison and moves into a deserted city building with a woman friend (Helen Hopkins), where he reluctantly becomes involved with a production of Hamlet. Haunted by the uncertainty of his past, together with his guilt for exisiting, he becomes more and more like Shakespeare's infamous Dane.

'australian James Clayden belongs to a race of artists that in the absence of a better term, we could call (total) filmmaker, playwright, plastic artist and video artist, his works in audio visual medium seem to defy all definitions, as shown by his Ghost Paintings.' -Buenos Aires Film Festival

James Clayden, Helen Hopkins and Tom Wright are guests of the Festival.

D/P/S/WS James Clayden TD DVD/Col/2003/118mins

The films of James Clayden include: Corpse (1982), With Time to Kill (1987), Ghost Paintings series (MIFF 2003).