NOWNESS presents another beautiful video which brings together literature and video art and reveals model and actress Clara Paget‘s intensive voice while wandering around a rough sea setting: The contrasting shoreline of Bournemouth on the English south coast and “The Sea Close By” by legendary author and “Master of the Absurd”, Albert Camus are the perfect match; the beach lending an evocative backdrop to Paget’s reading of a passage from Camus’ essay “The Sea Close By” which reveals the writer as a sensual witness of landscapes, the sea and sailing.

“I always had an image in my head of a chapter from A Happy Deathby Camus,” explains director and photographer Tom Beard, who recently shot music videos for both celebrated newcomer FKA Twigs and the more established band Florence and the Machine. “It’s a sunny, rich portrait of his life growing up in Algiers—the heat, the sea, good weather; he paints an amazing picture. I wanted to try to do this in a very English way and create a sense of being transported through this extract.”

Watch the visual interpretation of philosopher Albert Camus’ text, starring the rising starlet Clara Paget:

via NOWNESS. Photos: Screenshot.

In a video dialogue with Amanda Harlech, Karl Lagerfeld’s longtime right-hand woman Jonathan (J.W.) Anderson discusses definitions of collaboration. There, the young London-based designer and founder of his own acclaimed, eponymous menswear and womenswear lines who collaborated with Topshop and Versus in the past, speaks words of truths which are our quote of the day: ”You can’t always give, give, give and you can’t always take, take, take. It has to be about the balance of the two things.”

Keep these words in mind as we try very hard to suit the action to the word.

Watch the short film “On Collaboration: Amanda Harlech x Jonathan Anderson” which was directed by Johnnie Shand-Kydd here.

Pic: Screenshot / NOWNESS.

When checking NOWNESS, we can always be sure that we will come across lots of new short films, often touching, always compelling. This time we were confronted with Jem Goulding‘s “Sergei Polunin: The Fragile Balance” – a short film about Sergei Polunin, the youngest-ever principal dancer in the history of the Royal Ballet who left Ukraine at the tender age of 13 to join London’s Royal Ballet School and is often compared with 20th century greats Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev. Capturing the inner world of the “Restless Prince of Ballet,” poet, artist and filmmaker Jem Goulding portrays this highly talented young man by stringing together atmospheric fragments and monologic snippets.

Shooting on Super 8 and her 16mm Bolex camera, Jem Goulding depicts a seldom seen side of Polunin who either is seen dancing or talking while walking, hanging around or sitting on a sofa, bare-chested and putting his numerous tattoos on display.

Watch “Sergei Polunin: The Fragile Balance” here:

Photo: Screenshot / NOWNESS.