The films of John Smith create a world from the
“simple” experiences of living, breathing and being
a filmmaker or artist in a particular place and time.
Smith’s often humorous films produced over the last
30 years have inventively documented and probed his
immediate surroundings, often not even moving much
beyond the front door of his various abodes in a small
area of East London (predominantly Leytonstone).
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to describe Smith’s
films as overly delicate, preciously insular or purely
personal – assignations that the previous description
might suggest – as his work sees within the minutiae
of familiar surroundings a range of philosophical,
aesthetic, technical and quotidian challenges and
revelations that extend far beyond the realm of much
other comparable cinema