Director: Douglas Arrowsmith
Canada, UK 2009, 83 min.

Memory, desire and great film art in a poetic rediscovery of Duran Duran's founder

Lightyears separate the Stephen Duffy presented in Douglas Arrowsmith's atmospheric portrait film from the young and arty punk lad who started Duran Duran but dropped out after a year to focus on his solo career. Today's Duffy is a 49-year-old gentleman with a goatee and a face that bears witness to a long-lived life devoted to art. As a 20-year-old he attended arts college, painted his eyes black and quoted Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker in his dark songs. He has tried most music genres, from introspective and gloomy punk to the kind of neon-coloured pop that he himself calls 'synth pop marxism', and in the past 20 years he has regularly seduced a small but devoted following with his band The Lilac Time and their beautiful folk-pop songs. The portrait of Stephen Duffy is the portrait of an artist who insists on art, magic and poetry - and with his sensual Super8 images and strongly personal approach, Arrowsmith brings all three of these elements to glowing life.