What Means Something (2015) dir. Ben Rivers

A portrait of the painter Rose Wylie. I met Rose a few years ago and we got along well. I went to visit her studio and she watched some of my films. Happily she liked them. So I asked her if I could make a film about her and she agreed. The film, finally, is a meeting between two friends. Much like when Rose begins a painting, making a filmic portrait is an open engagement; the exact form will reveal itself in the making. I began by visiting Rose repeatedly at her house in Kent, filming her in her studio, house and garden. The film grew from modest beginnings and became much longer than intended, mainly because I wanted to keep returning to see Rose. She gave me complete access to filming her painting so there are long sequences simply watching this process, alongside more relaxed times reading, looking at sketchbooks, talking about painting and other things, looking at source material and sitting in her junglelike garden. Ben Rivers