Year of release: 2018
Duration: 35 min
Director: Patrick Tubin McGinley, Daniel Edward Allen
Original Language: English, Estonian
Country of production: Estonia
Shooting location: Estonia
The Mill is an experimental documentary focusing on the sensorial experience within an unmodernised paper mill in south Estonia. It is non-narrative, and although people are present there is no central human character. Rather, it is a cinematic investigation of a space, portraying one small part of the industrial world through the activity of the factory’s machines and the people who interact with them. At times the film verges on sensory overload, skirting the boundary between documentary and abstraction.
Filmmaker Bios
Patrick is an American-born sound, performance and radio artist who works specifically with location and field recording in both documentary and abstracted form. He has recorded and designed sound for a number of films, released many albums of compositional work under the moniker Murmer, and produced Framework Radio, a program for the field recording community, for over 15 years.
Daniel is originally from the UK and is from a photography background. His interest is in experimental forms of photography, especially analogue, and he is active in promoting this, as well as experimental film, in Estonia. He has given various workshops in this field, and has had photography exhibited and published in Estonia and abroad.
Both now live in Estonia where they are involved in sound, photography and more mainstream film individually, and experimental film collectively. The Mill is their first film together and forms part of an on-going series that investigates Estonia as a regenerating post-occupation society.
The opportunity to film at the paper mill arose from a sound project that Patrick had previously undertaken using recordings made there. This, combined with a supportive and friendly factory manager, opened the door to the film a year later.
mill:liminal is the sonic companion to the mill, composed by director Patrick Tubin McGinley under his alias murmer, and released online and on cd by the new york city-based label deep mapping in 2026. hear the sounds below, or follow the link to deep mapping’s bandcamp page to stream or purchase the album there.