MPHQ Pictures

MPHQ Pictures is an independent film production company focusing on art cinema and films on art.

BACON’S HISTORIES: Study for a Portrait

Currently in post-production on the film BACON’S HISTORIES; Study for a Portrait, a 50 minute film shot in Greece, London, Paris, Spain, South Africa, Egypt and Germany.

The final film in Martha Parsey’s Francis Bacon film trilogy explores the influence of the Histories, namely the Greek dramas, Egyptian sculpture, and poetry and literature on Francis Bacon’s painting; both in his style and choice of subject matter. The film is underscored by previously unpublished interviews with Francis Bacon discussing at length the influence of the Greeks and Egyptians, as well as the influence of T. S. Eliot and the work of Shakespeare. 

SHAKESPEARE’S GHOST

MPHQ is currently in post-production on the film SHAKESPEARE’S GHOST, a 20 minute cinematic conversation between Ken McMullen and Martha Parsey on the enduring influence of Shakespeare, based on Ken McMullen’s film Hamlet Within and his upcoming film on King Lear Head of State. Shot in Greece. Language: English.

MODEL AND ARTIST; Henrietta Moraes and Francis Bacon

Model and Artist; Henrietta Moraes and Francis Bacon contains the only filmed interview with Henrietta Moraes, intercut with Francis Bacon in interview with David Sylvester.

Meeting Francis Bacon in London’s Soho of the 1960s, Henrietta Moraes (1931-1999) became a close friend of Bacon’s and his most frequently painted female subject. In interview at Bacon’s exhibition of small portraits at the Marlborough Gallery, London, Henrietta describes her relationship to Francis Bacon, intercut with Francis Bacon in interview with David Sylvester; a final dialogue between model and artist.

FRANCIS BACON IN PARIS

David Sylvester, close friend and interviewer of Francis Bacon, hangs the Francis Bacon retrospective exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 1996, four years after the artist’s death. Accompanying David Sylvester through the hanging of the show, Francis Bacon talks us through the works in his own words, from private conversations and previously unpublished interviews with David Sylvester from the 1970s, forming a final posthumous dialogue between artist and critic. An exhibition that was a testimony both to their lasting friendship and to Bacon’s supremacy as a painter, is staged in Paris, where Francis Bacon first decided to paint and David Sylvester first started writing.