https://vimeo.com/244190186
Original Name: Arena: Stanley and his daughters.
English Name: Arena: Stanley and his daughters.
Year: 2018
Run Time: 75'
Language:English
Type (Colour/ Black & White):Colour
Country: United Kingdom
Director: Francis Hanly
Producer: Francis Hanly
Cast: John Spencer, Shirin Spencer, Unity Spencer , Stanley Spencer
Cinematographer: Francis Hanly
Editor: Isobel Goodrich
Production Company:1212 Productions, BBC, Illuminations Films
Selected Filmography:
2019 Franco Building with Jonathan Meades (Doc)
2018 Jonathan Meades on Jargon (Doc)
2015 Sgt Pepper's Musical Revolution with Howard Goodall (Doc)
2016 Ben Building: Mussolini, Monuments and Modernism (Doc)
Director’s Biography: Francis Hanly is an Royal Television Society award winner and BAFTA nominee documentary director. He’s made films about people as iconic as Pavarotti, George Martin, The Beatles and the three great Scottish Football Managers, Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Jock Stein. He’s had a long collaboration with writer and broadcaster Jonathan Meades, making films on subjects as diverse as Brutalist architecture, the county of Essex and Benito Mussolini. His love and knowledge of music is reflected in the series Mr Rock and Roll about rock’s most infamous managers and Rock Family Trees.
Synopsis: The family saga of Stanley Spencer, one Britain’s greatest painters, and the effect it had on his two daughters. This film explores what is it like to be the children of a genius in a family whose private life has been described as ‘the most bizarre domestic soap opera in the history of British art’. At the heart of the film are Stanley Spencer’s daughters, Unity, 87 and Shirin, 91. Their separation, after Stanley’s divorce from fellow artist Hilda, was traumatic and, only now in old age, have the sisters come together.