Some of the darkest images the film conjures up now look like reportage, as the crisis spirals beyond where it was at when this eerily diverting number was produced. — Jonathan Jones, The Guardian.
Selected Press
In Melanie Gilligan's Artangel film Crisis in the Credit System, a role-play session by a group of city high-flyers at a country house hotel turns into a nightmare vision of capitalism out of control. Except it ain't no nightmare - some of the darkest images the film conjures up now look like reportage, as the crisis spirals beyond where it was at when this eerily diverting number was produced. — Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 30 September 2008.
Artangel, the London based curatorial team, which is usually ahead every curve in the business, have comissioned the first work explicitly influenced by the crunch. Crisis in the Credit System is a four-part film piece by Melanie Gilligan. — Charlotte Appleyard, Huffington Post Blog, 16 Novermber 2008.
Crisis in the Credit Systemwas commissioned at a time when few people had much sense of the severity of what was unfolding. Debuting on 1 October 2008, as stock markets plummeted and massive banking concerns declared bankruptcy, the role-playing games and imaginative speculations of the financial analysts it portrays must have squared off with the headlines in unsettling ways. — Jasper Bernes, Mute, 23 June 2015.
Melanie Gilligan
Melanie Gilligan was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1979. She has received considerable critical interest over the past year following the presentation of performance works including Prison of Objects for Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Visual Arts 08, Prairial, Year 215 at Greene Naftali, New York and The Miner’s Object, a storytelling performance at Tate Britain, London. Writing sits at the heart of Melanie’s practice and she is known for her critical contribution to magazines and journals as well as her own artwork.
Image: Still of the employees standing in a circle during a role-playing exercise, taken from the opening scene of Crisis in the Credit System: Episode 1 by Melanie Gilligan, 2008.
Production Credits
Cast (in order of appearance)
Souad Faress — Souad, Journalist, Therapist, Chef, Patron
Katharine Peachey — Director
Paul Fuller — Ian, Head of Evergain Private Equity
Penelope Mcghie — Penelope, Hedge fund manager
Sartaj Garewal — Sartaj, Hedge fund manager
Mark Rice-Oxley — Mark, Trader, the Oracle, Waiter
Kerry McKenzie — Rose the assistant
Paul Richards — Paul the assistant
Maija Timonen — Sarah the artist
Dan Mitchell — Associate in the lift
Benedict Seymour — FSA investigator
Crew
Written and Directed by Melanie Gilligan
Producer — Rehana Zaman
Camera Operator — Suzie Lavelle
Production Manager — Tom Dingle
Production sound and sound design — Tom Sedgwick
Additional screenplay and ideas — Benedict Seymour
Camera Assistant — Ben Jones
Production Assistant — Baptiste Bernard
Editors — Melanie Gilligan, Matthew Huston
Graphics — Tim Booth
'Crisis in the Credit System' (Original music) — Petit Mal
Score — Benedict Seymour
Script and editing advice — David Panos
Read the complete cast and crew credits
Image: Still from Crisis in the Credit System, Episode 3. New York Stock exchange footage provided by the Open University. Copyright: Melanie Gilligan
Who made this possible?
Credits
This project was supported by Arts Council England, Artangel International Circle, Special Angels, Guardian Angels and The Company of Angels.
