Falls the Shadow

Short Film (Full Length) – 2010

In this documentary, artist Helen Pollock discusses her sculpture Falls the Shadow. Using clay from the Coromandel and the Passchendaele (Netherlands) battlefield, she created a grove of arms reaching up against a background of trees stripped bare by gunfire in World War I. The work was inspired by her father, a wartime signaller. Pollock discusses her installation and the effect of combat on New Zealand troops in the war (846 Kiwis died in two hours during the 1917 battle of Passchendaele). The work is now on permanent display at Passchendaele Memorial Museum.

The clay was really disposable and ordinary, and those young men’s bodies were disposable and ordinary.
– Helen Pollock

Key Cast & Crew

Helen Pollock

Director

Scott Ewing

Editor, Director

Matt Klitscher

Camera

Andrew McMillan

Soundscape

Produced by

Helen Pollock

Acknowledgements

Additional photography: Glenn Jowitt, Kryzstof Pfieffer, Tom Bowie, Derek Brickell, Paul Smith

Archival Footage: Archives New Zealand, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library New Zealand, Australian War Memorial, Young Family Archive, Bayer Foundation Cologne Archive

Special thanks: Māori Television