Ghost Dance is a 1983 British film directed by Ken McMullen

Ken McMullen (film director)

Ken McMullen is an award-winning film director and artist living currently in London. His feature films are distributed worldwide, his documentaries broadcast extensively and his art works exhibited in leading contemporary art galleries in Europe, The United States and the Far East...

. This independent film explores the beliefs and myths surrounding the existence of ghosts and the nature of cinema.

Plot

Through the experiences of two women in Paris and London, Ghost Dance offers a stunning analysis of the complexity of our conceptions of ghosts, memory and the past. It is an adventure film strongly influenced by the work of Jacques Rivette

Jacques Rivette

Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....

 and Jean Luc Godard but with a unique intellectual and artistic discourse of its own and it is this that tempts the ghosts to appear, for Ghost Dance is permeated with all kinds of phantasmal presence. The film focuses on philosopher Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...

 who considers ghosts to be the memory of something which has never been present. This theory is explored in the film.
This Film has also been compared with the following works; Celine and Julie Go Boating

Celine and Julie Go Boating

Céline and Julie Go Boating is a 1974 French film directed by Jacques Rivette.Shot casually in a documentary style, we see a red-haired woman—we will learn that it is Julie --sitting on a bench in a pleasant but rather non-descript Parisian park. She is reading a book, we can see, on magic...

, Thelma & Louise, O Lucky Man, Sans Soleil

Sans Soleil

Sans Soleil is a 1983 French film directed by Chris Marker. The title is from the song cycle Sunless by Modest Mussorgsky...

, Week End, Viva Maria.

Cast

• Leonie Mellinger
  Leonie Mellinger
  Leonie Mellinger is a British actress. In the television mini-series Small World she played a central double role portraying the twins Angelica and Lily.Mellinger trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama...
  
  
• Pascale Ogier
  Pascale Ogier
  Pascale Ogier was a French actress.Born Pascale Marguerite Cécile Claude Colette Nicolas in Paris, she was the daughter of a musician father and actress Bulle Ogier. Pascale also chose an acting career, first with appearances on stage...
  
  
• Robbie Coltrane
  Robbie Coltrane
  Robbie Coltrane, OBE is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is known both for his role as Dr...
  
  
• Jacques Derrida
  Jacques Derrida
  Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
  
  
• Dominique Pinon
  Dominique Pinon
  Dominique Pinon is a French actor whose most famous roles have been in the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Jean-Jacques Beineix. In the theatre, he has appeared in the plays of Gildas Bourdet, Jorge Lavelli and Valère Novarina...
  
  

John Annette

Crew

• Producer - Ken McMullen
  Ken McMullen (film director)
  Ken McMullen is an award-winning film director and artist living currently in London. His feature films are distributed worldwide, his documentaries broadcast extensively and his art works exhibited in leading contemporary art galleries in Europe, The United States and the Far East...
  
  
• Writer - Ken McMullen
• Cinematographer
  Cinematographer
  A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
  
    - Peter Harvey
  Peter Harvey
  Peter Harvey is an award-winning Australian television journalist.He has been with the Nine Network since 1975 and currently he presents the mailbag segment on 60 Minutes as well as being a reporter on Nine News and a regular contributor on Today.Harvey studied his journalism cadetship with the...
  
  
• Music
  Music
  Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
  
    - David Cunningham
  David Cunningham
  David Cunningham lives and works in London. Cunningham's work has ranged from pop music to gallery installations, including work for television, film, contemporary dance, and a number of collaborations with visual artists...
  
   Michael Giles
  Michael Giles
  Michael Giles is an English drummer, best known as a co-founder of King Crimson in 1969...
  
   Jamie Muir
  Jamie Muir
  Jamie Muir is a UK painter and former percussionist, best known for his work in King Crimson.-Biography:Muir attended Edinburgh College of Art during the 1960s and began playing jazz on trombone before settling on percussion....