Richard Billingham
«Fishtank»

An alcoholic, emaciated father; a grossly obese, tattooed mother; a goofy, hormone-addled brother—all together in a claustrophobic council flat. [...] Fishtank, his first film, charts the emotional territory of the flat and the family who play out their lives within its confines. Billingham draws on 50 hours of video footage, shot over two years, to provide a mesmerising yet dull home movie of life in his parents' British Midlands tower block flat, laying bare their intense relationship for the camera. Billingham films it all with his handicam. The verité style leaves no room for technical niceties. The camera lingers on Ray's neck, his cavernous nostrils, knotty veins, and sagging skin; follows the path of Liz's eyeliner as it traces the rim of her eye, thickly applying a path of blue.

(source: New York Video Festival 2000)