Charlie Shackleton (formerly Charlie Lyne; born 15 August 1991) is a British filmmaker, multimedia artist, and film critic. He has made several films, including ''

Beyond Clueless ''Beyond Clueless'' is a 2014 British documentary film about teen movies, directed by Charlie Shackleton, narrated by Fairuza Balk and with an original soundtrack by Summer Camp. Summary The film features extracts from over 200 teen movies, wi ...

,'' '' Fear Itself'', and the 2023 protest film '' Paint Drying'', as well as the multimedia performance piece '' As Mine Exactly''.

Early life

Charlie Shackleton was born on 15 August 1991, at St Mary's Hospital in London, raised by his mother, Jane Shackleton. He details in his piece ''As Mine Exactly'' how their relationship evolved after she developed

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of Non-communicable disease, non-communicable Neurological disorder, neurological disorders characterized by a tendency for recurrent, unprovoked Seizure, seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of abnormal electrical activit ...

when he was a child. At the time, Shackleton videotaped several of her seizures at the request of her medical team.

Career

Shackleton established the movie blog Ultra Culture in 2008, at the age of 16. In 2010, Shackleton joined the BBC programme ''Film 2010'', after being approached by host

Claudia Winkleman Claudia Anne Irena Winkleman (born 15 January 1972) is an English broadcaster and writer. She has been nominated three times for the British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance for co-presenting the BBC One dancing compet ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

. Shackleton left the show after one season. He continues to write film criticism as a regular contributor to ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (formerly written ''Sight & Sound'') is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time. ...

''. His debut film ''

'' premiered at

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

in 2014. The film, an essayistic exploration of nineties teen movies narrated by

Fairuza Balk Fairuza Balk (born May 21, 1974) is an American actress, musician, and visual artist. Known for her portrayals of distinctive characters—often with a dark edge and " goth-girl" persona—she has appeared in numerous independent films and block ...

, was crowdfunded through

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

. His second, '' Fear Itself'', debuted on the

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available Over-the-top media service, over-the-top on a wide range of devices, including Mobile phone, mobile phones and Tablet computer ...

in October 2015. Like his debut, it utilised existing film footage and original narration, this time exploring the

horror genre Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defin ...

. In 2016, Shackleton again took to Kickstarter to crowdfund '' Paint Drying'', a 607-minute film of white paint drying on a brick wall to be submitted to the

British Board of Film Classification The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is a non-governmental organization, non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films exhibited ...

in a protest against censorship and mandatory classification for films released in the UK. On 26 January 2016, ''Paint Drying'' was given a U rating for 'no material likely to offend or harm'. In 2018 he founded the production company LOOP with filmmakers Antony Ing and Catherine Bray. The same year they offered three 'no-strings-attached' filmmaker grants of £5,000, which were awarded to Jamie Janković, Grace Lee, and John Ogunmuyiwa. Loop will not retain any copyright or ownership of the films. Charlie Shackleton

Through Loop, Shackleton continued to direct and produce features and shorts in the

essay film An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

format. His short documentaries ''Fish Story'' and ''Lasting Marks'', published through ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', focused on the family history of film critic Caspar Salmon and the British police's investigation into same-sex male sadomasochism in the 1980s, respectively. ''Lasting Marks'' was a co-production with documentarian

Laura Poitras Laura Poitras (; born February 2, 1964) is an American director and producer of documentary films. Poitras has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for ''Citizenfour'', about Edwa ...

's company Field of Vision, and based on Shackleton's own archival research. He worked with Ross Sutherland on the essay film ''

Stand By for Tape Back-Up ''Stand By For Tape Back-Up'' is a 2015 British documentary film by Scottish poet and performance artist Ross Sutherland. Summary Consisting of recordings from an old VHS tape left by his late grandfather as the director looks back at his younger ...

'', which used the degrading quality of

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

tapes to explore familial grief, and was a creative consultant on Kitty Green's '' The Assistant''. In 2021 and 2022 respectively he began touring two new projects: '' The Afterlight'', another essay film which exists as a single print which will degrade with each showing, and ''As Mine Exactly'', a virtual reality performance piece about his mother's experiences with

. Both works can only be accessed in person; ''As Mine Exactly'' is performed one-on-one by Shackleton for each individual. ''As Mine Exactly'' was performed in Belfast; Denver; Columbus; New York City; London; Lewisburg, Pennsylvania; and Columbia, Missouri, for between 20 and 52 individuals in each city. The piece won the Immersive Art and XR Award at the 2022

London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England, in collaboration with the British Film Institute. Founded in 1957, the festival runs for two weeks every October. In 2016, the British Film Institute, BFI estim ...

. Shackleton's feature-length documentary '' Zodiac Killer Project'' premiered at the

2025 Sundance Film Festival The 2025 Sundance Film Festival took place in person from January 23 to February 2, 2025, in Park City, Utah, Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, and online from January 30 to February 2. The first selection lineup was announced on December 11, ...

, where it won the NEXT Innovator Award.

Personal life

According to Shackleton, he and his mother were abandoned by his father when he was a baby. He started using his father's surname, Lyne, around 2004 in what he termed "a fit of teenage reinvention". In 2019, regretting the decision, he resumed using his mother's last name.

Works

Film

*''

'' (2014) *'' Copycat'' (2015) *'' Fear Itself'' (2015) *''Fish Story'' (2017) *'' Personal Truth'' (2017) *'' Lasting Marks'' (2018) *''A Machine For Viewing'' (2019) *'' The Afterlight'' (2021) *'' Paint Drying'' (2023) *'' Zodiac Killer Project'' (2025)

Multimedia

* ''As Mine Exactly'' (2022)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shackleton, Charlie English film critics English television presenters British bloggers 1991 births Living people English filmmakers Multimedia artists Collage filmmakers Video essayists Sundance Film Festival award winners