{{Short description|British artist, writer, and filmmaker (born 1959)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2026}} [[File:Andrew Koetting (6280131077) (cropped).jpg|thumb|Kötting at an event for his ''Swandown'' film, in 2011]] '''Andrew Kötting''' (born 16 December 1959) is a British artist, writer, and filmmaker.
He made numerous experimental short films, which were awarded prizes at international film festivals. ''Gallivant'', was his first feature film, a road/home film about his four-month journey around the coast of the UK, with his grandmother Gladys and his daughter Eden. ''Gallivant'' won the Channel 4 Prize at the Edinburgh Film Festival for Best Director and the Golden Ribbon Award in Rimini (Italy). In 2011 the film was voted number 49 in Best British Film of all time by ''Time Out''.
Kötting has frequently collaborated with Iain Sinclair,<ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-06-22|title=Edith Walks - Andrew Kötting, Iain Sinclair and their band of Mummers|url=http://thelostbyway.com/2017/06/edith-walks-andrew-kotting-iain-sinclair-band-mummers.html|access-date=2021-02-26|website=the lost byway}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Swandown (Dual Format Edition)|url=https://shop.bfi.org.uk/swandown-dual-format-edition.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210831122327/https://shop.bfi.org.uk/swandown-dual-format-edition.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=31 August 2021|access-date=2021-02-26|website=shop.bfi.org.uk}}</ref> Jem Finer and his daughter Eden Kötting. He is currently a Professor of Time Based Media at the University for the Creative Arts Canterbury.<ref>{{cite web|title=University for the Creative Arts - Kotting Professor Andrew - UCA|url=http://www.uca.ac.uk/staff-profiles/professor-andrew-kotting/|access-date=3 Jul 2017|format=}}</ref>
==Early life== Kötting was born in Kent on 16 December 1959.<ref name=Guardian>{{cite news |last=Sandhu |first=Sukhdev |date=18 Nov 2011 |title=Scenes from Andrew Kötting's life |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/nov/18/andrew-kotting-this-our-still-life |work=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=3 Jul 2017 }}</ref><ref name=BFI>{{cite web |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/578008/index.html |title=BFI Screenonline: Kötting, Andrew (1958-) Biography |access-date=3 Jul 2017 }}</ref> He studied BA Fine Art at the Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in 1984 and MA in Mixed Media at the Slade School of Art in 1988.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/andrew_kotting/ |title=Andrew Kotting - Works, Articles, Clips and Stills | Luxonline |format= |access-date=3 Jul 2017 }}</ref>
==Life and career== Kötting released ''Gallivant'', his first feature-length film, in 1996.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/volume-3-issue-6-summer-2007/andrew-kottings-gallivant/ |title=VERTIGO | Andrew Kötting's Gallivant |first=Gareth |last=Evans |date=Summer 2007 |work=Vertigo |publisher=Close-Up Film Centre |access-date=4 Jul 2017 }}</ref> It premièred at the Edinburgh Film Festival, where it won the Channel 4 Best New Director prize.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://shop.bfi.org.uk/gallivant-dvd-bluray.html#.WVtKUTeQw8o |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150908043321/http://shop.bfi.org.uk/gallivant-dvd-bluray.html#.WVtKUTeQw8o |url-status=dead |archive-date=8 September 2015 |title=Buy Gallivant - Gallivant |publisher=BFI |quote=Gallivant scooped the Best New Director Award at its Edinburgh Film Festival premiere. |access-date=4 Jul 2017 }}</ref> Kötting released his second feature, ''This Filthy Earth'',<ref name=TimeOut /> in 2001.<ref name=BFI /> It was loosely adapted from Émile Zola's novel ''La Terre''.<ref name=TimeOut>{{cite web |url=https://www.timeout.com/london/film/this-filthy-earth |title=This Filthy Earth, directed by Andrew Kötting | Film review |author=GA |work=TimeOut |date=10 September 2012 |publisher=TimeOut London |quote=The follow-up to Kötting's road movie/autobiographical essay Gallivant recounts a fictional tale of familial and social strife inspired by Zola's La Terre. |access-date=4 Jul 2017 }}</ref>
In July 2010, Kötting was an artist-in-residence at the La Rochelle International Film Festival in south-west France, creating work and collaborating with the photographer Sebastian Edge.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://lux.org.uk/writing/kotting-edge-land |title=KOTTING AND EDGE LAND New Publication out now - LUX |date=9 Feb 2012 |publisher=Lux |quote=collaboration between the artist and film maker, Andrew Kotting and the photographer, Sebastian Edge [who worked] together at La Rochelle in 2010, where Kotting was an artist-in-residence at The Centre Intermondes. |access-date=4 Jul 2017 }}</ref> In 2011 he directed ''This Our Still Life'', which premièred at the Venice Film Festival and was acquired by the BFI for distribution in the UK<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-dvd-press-release-this-our-still-life-2012-02-09.pdf |title=DVD press release - This Our Still Life - A film by Andrew Kötting |date=9 Feb 2012 |publisher=BFI |quote=This Our Still Life by Andrew Kötting ... Premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival and released in cinemas by the BFI |access-date=4 Jul 2017 }}</ref> and Ireland.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uca.ac.uk/staff-profiles/professor-andrew-kotting/ |title=University for the Creative Arts - KOTTING Professor Andrew - UCA |quote='Louyre - This Our Still Life' premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in competition 2011 and distributed in the UK and Ireland by the BFI. |access-date=4 Jul 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Everyworld Season - info and ticket booking |url=https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/season/719/the-everyworld-season |website=www.watershed.co.uk |publisher=Bristol Watershed |access-date=17 March 2026 |language=en}}</ref>
Gareth Evans,<ref>{{Cite web|title=At Play in the Ideas of the World: Curator Gareth Evans on the films of Mike Dibb|url=https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/about/blog/at-play-in-the-ideas-of-the-world-curator-gareth-evans-on-the-films-of-mike-dibb/|access-date=2021-02-26|website=Whitechapel Gallery|date=31 January 2021 }}</ref> Curator, Whitechapel Gallery, called Kötting one of Britain's most intriguing artists, currently practising who: <blockquote>could be said to have taken to heart the spirit of visionary curiosity and hybrid creativity exemplified by the late Derek Jarman. His forty year oeuvre to date has moved from early live-art inflected, often absurdist pieces, through darkly comic shorts teasing out the melancholy surrealism at the heart of contemporary Englishness to nine resolutely independent feature films that take landscape and journeys as the springboards for visually striking and structurally inventive enquiries into identity, belonging, history and notions of community. It is his openness and outlaw intelligence and compelling wit that marks out his work as both vital and important."</blockquote>
==Filmography==
*''Klipperty Klopp'' (1984) *''Gallivant'' (1996)<ref name=Guardian /> *''This Filthy Earth'' (2001)<ref name=BFI /> *''Mapping Perception'' (2002)<ref name=BFI /> *''In the Wake of Deadad'' (2006)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/in-the-wake-of-a-deadad-andrew-kotting/5893|title=Films - In The Wake Of A Deadad|format=|access-date=4 Jul 2017}}</ref> *''Ivul'' (2009)<ref name=Guardian /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bfi.org.uk:80/lff/node/414 |title=Ivul | The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival |author=Jonathan Romney |date=Oct 2009 |publisher=BFI |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091011011638/http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/414 |archive-date=11 October 2009 |access-date=4 Jul 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> *''Louyre: This Our Still Life'' (2011)<ref name=Guardian /> *''Swandown'' (2012)<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jul/18/swandown-iain-sinclair-andrew-kotting|title=Swandown: two men in a pedalo | Film|last=Rose|first=Steve|date=18 Jul 2012|work=The Guardian|access-date=4 Jul 2017}}</ref> *''By Our Selves'' (2015)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/01/by-our-selves-review-john-clare-andrew-kotting-toby-jones|title=By Our Selves review – disturbing journey through John Clare's poetry | Film | The Guardian|last=Bradshaw|first=Peter|date=1 Oct 2015|work=The Guardian|access-date=4 Jul 2017}}</ref> *''Lek and the Dogs'' (2017)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://screenarchive.brighton.ac.uk/news/1925/|title=Lek and the Dogs dir. Andrew Kötting – Screen Archive South East|format=|website=screenarchive.brighton.ac.uk|access-date=4 Jul 2017}}</ref> *''Edith Walks'' (2017)<ref>{{Cite web|title=Film of the week: Edith Walks makes England loopy again {{!}} Sight & Sound|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/edith-walks-andrew-kotting-makes-england-loopy-again|access-date=2021-02-26|website=British Film Institute|date=23 June 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-06-22|title=Edith Walks review – eccentric trek in pursuit of Englishness|url=http://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/22/edith-walks-review-andrew-kotting|access-date=2021-02-26|website=The Guardian}}</ref> *''Their rancid Words Stagnate Our Ponds'' (2018)https://mubi.com/en/cast/andrew-kotting/films/director *''The Whalebone Box'' (2019)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/apr/05/the-whalebone-box-review-andrew-kotting-iain-sinclair|title=The Whalebone Box review – so strange it must be true|first=Mark|last=Kermode|date=5 April 2020|website=The Guardian}}</ref> *''Diseased and Disorderly'' (2021) – short film with Eden Kotting, Glenn Whiting and Isabelle Skinner *''Nowness Experiments: Diseased and Disorderly''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nowness.com/series/nowness-experiments/|website=www.nowness.com|title=Diseased and Disorderly}}</ref> *''The Buzz of the Past'' - short film (2022)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lux.org.uk/work/the-buzz-of-the-past/|title=THE BUZZ OF THE PAST}}</ref> *''The Tell Tale Rooms'' - VR Experience (2023)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://xrstories.co.uk/project/the-tell-tale-rooms/|title=The Tell-Tale Rooms: Exploring virtual rooms using CGI and 360° VR}}</ref> *''Hope Holds Up Her Head and Hopes'' (2025) - short film<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/hope-holds-up-her-head-and-hopes|title=British Council UK Films Database: Hope Holds Up Her Head and Hopes|website=filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org}}</ref> *''The Memory Blocks'' (2025)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.edfilmfest.org/film/the-memory-blocks/|title=The Memory Blocks}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/aug/15/the-memory-blocks-review-playful-and-purposeful-exploration-of-developmental-disorders|title=The Memory Blocks review – playful and purposeful exploration of developmental disorders|first=Peter|last=Bradshaw|date=15 August 2025|via=The Guardian}}</ref> *''The Everyworld'' (2026)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/season/719/the-everyworld-season|title=The Everyworld Season - info and ticket booking, Bristol | Watershed|website=www.watershed.co.uk}}</ref>
== Performances == * 2013 ''Swandown'', with Iain Sinclair, Jem Finer, Kirsten Norrie at Shoreline Literature Festival Aldeburgh, Dilston Grove London * 2015 ''By Our Selves'', with Sinclair, Norrie, Finer and David Aylward at Dilston Grove, Battersea Arts Centre, Whitechapel Gallery, Colchester Arts Centre, Whitechapel Gallery and Oxford Brookes University. * 2016 ''Edith'', with Claudia Barton at Electric Spring Huddersfield University. * 2016 ''Edith'', with Sinclair, Finer, Aylward, and Barton at Root 1066 Arts Festival, Hastings. * 2017 ''Edith'', with Barton at Alchemy Festival Hawick, Scottish Borders. * 2017 ''Edith'', with Sinclair, Finer, Aylward, Barton, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Andrew Kötting: Who You Walk With Alters What You See|url=https://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/exhibition/andrew-kotting/|access-date=2021-02-26|website=Towner Eastbourne}}</ref> * 2025 ''Hastings father-daughter duo host groundbreaking VR experience''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/lifestylegeneral/hastings-father-daughter-duo-host-groundbreaking-free-vr-experience/ar-AA1zL7Ne?apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1|title=MSN|website=www.msn.com}}</ref>
== Publications == === Publications by Kötting=== * ''Swandown''. With Iain Sinclair. Badbloodandsibyl, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-9568733-30}}. * ''By Our Selves''. With Iain Sinclair, Dr Simon Kovesi, Toby Jones and Alan Moore. Badbloodandsibyl, 2015. {{ISBN|978-0-9568733-61}}. * ''Edith (The Cronicles)''. With Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore. Badbloodandsibyl, 2016. {{ISBN|978-0-9568733-4-7}} * ''Earthworks''. Badbloodandsibyl, 2018. {{ISBN|978-0-9568733-7-8}}. * ''The Tell Tale Rooms''. Badbloodandsibyl, 2024. {{ISBN|978-1-7384684-0-9}}. * ''Blabbermind''. Badbloodandibyl, 2025. {{ISBN|978-1-7384684-1-6}}. * ''Quantum Shenanigans & Gravitational To-Dos Downyönder in a Place of Energy & Wonder just before the precarious thereafter''. Badbloodandsibyl, 2021. {{ISBN|978-0-9568733-8-5}}.
=== Publications with contributions by Kötting=== * ''The Unwanted Sound of Everything we Think we Want''. Kötting contributes a chapter in Documentary Film and the Listening Experience. University of Huddersfield Press, 2018. {{ISBN|978-1-86218-156-4}}.
== References == {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name | id=0467836}} *[https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-andrew-kotting Where to begin with Andrew Kötting], BFI *{{Cite web|url=https://thequietus.com/culture/film/gallivant-kotting-interview/|title=A Jaunt: Director Andrew Kötting Talks Gallivant 20 Years On|date=8 September 2017|website=The Quietus}} *{{Cite web|url=https://thegeekshow.co.uk/andrew-kotting-by-our-selves-2015/|title=Andrew Kötting: By Our Selves (2015) An Appreciation|date=30 November 2015|website=thegeekshow.co.uk}} *{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/30/andrew-kottings-idiosyncratic-take-on-britishness-the-whalebone-box|title=Eccentric, romantic, anarchic: Andrew Kötting's unique take on Britishness|first=Steve|last=Rose|date=30 March 2020|via=The Guardian}} *<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ft.com/content/b09b81c8-4f77-11e7-bfb8-997009366969|title=Andrew Kötting: voyages of an English visionary|first=Nigel|last=Andrews|date=18 June 2017}}</ref>
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kotting, Andrew}} Category:1960 births Category:British film directors Category:Living people Category:Artists from Kent Category:British male screenwriters Category:Academics of the University for the Creative Arts Category:Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Category:Alumni of Ravensbourne University London