black strangers, 2022

Single channel video, 8 minutes 13 seconds

Image descriptions: Image 1 is of some ragged black fabric draped off a barbed wire fence, with dark greenery out of focus in the background. Image 2 is of a pair of brown hands sorting through a pile of folded up eighteenth century documents on a black surface, all of them labeled with handwritten dates and locations. 

Image credits: Stills from black strangers, Dan Guthrie, 2022. 

After seeing him mentioned on a Bishop’s Transcript held in Gloucestershire Archives, Dan goes for a walk in the woods in search of Daniel, a man buried in Nympsfield on the 31st of December 1719 and described on the document as ‘a black stranger’. Whilst walking, Dan talks directly to Daniel, speculating about the parallels between him and his namesake and wrestling aloud with the problems that come with trying to read the archive at face value and fill in its gaps.

black strangers was part of Right of Way, a new feature-length programme that mixes stunning new artists’ commissions with historical archive films that give a bigger picture of questions of access and inclusion in the UK countryside.

black strangers is distributed by LUX, please contact them for more information.

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Selected screenings and exhibitions



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18th Forum Expanded Press Release
 Berlinale, January 2023

Right of Way Review
Noo Saro-Wiwa, ArtReview, March 2023


black strangers Screening Notes
 Chrystel Oloukoi, Prismatic Ground, April 2023

black strangers Screening Notes
Emil Vasilache, Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, September 2023

Acting in Whispers (commissioned essay for Dan Guthrie: Two Films)
Siavash Minoudakeh, Devonshire Collective, November 2023


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