Alabaster DePlume: Thank you, My Pain by Rebecca Salvadori [film screening]

London-based filmmaker Rebecca Salvadori presents Thank You, My Pain, a poetic exploration of friendship, music, and artistic collaboration, captured over years of intimate documentation within London’s underground creative community.

Salvadori began filming musician Alabaster DePlume in 2018 during her time at the Total Refreshment Centre, where her camera became both a witness and a participant in a vibrant ecosystem of artists. From Capitol K mastering an album in the recording studio, to Bo Ningen rehearsing nearby, to friends gathering in the living room overlooking Stoke Newington Road, Salvadori captured the threads of connection shaping the city’s independent music scene.

Over the last 15 years, Salvadori’s work has formed an ongoing archive of relationships between musicians and artists—a body of portraits rooted in exchange, trust, and presence. Thank You, My Pain is both part of this archive and a personal manifesto: a meditation on the bond between subject and filmmaker, where intimacy becomes research and friendship becomes art.

Their collaboration deepened when Salvadori filmed DePlume at the Colour Factory in 2021. He later invited her to document his 2023 KOKO performance at Pitchfork Music Festival, create the artwork for his 2025 album A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, and direct the music video for Oh My Actual Days!. Salvadori has also expanded her practice by integrating moving image into live performance, with works such as Messengers (2022–ongoing) and The Sun Has No Shadow (2022), presented at music festivals across Europe.

Thank You, My Pain emerges as the culmination of these parallel paths: a deeply subjective film that honors the power of showing up for one another. As DePlume reflects:

“ When you show up for someone without a motive or purpose, they never forget it - and the same is true for the piece. By being there with me ‘then’, Rebecca has captured both that lesson in my life, that resulted in what I’m making, and some of the methods I use in my work and the reasons. She was originally only filming because that’s what she’s like - and she was only there because she was my friend. She just happened to be a great artist also and I just happened to be living through a moment of learning, that she could capture. The learning itself, the friendship itself, are the main thing. The devotion at the source was human. The chance to capture and share them just happens to be unrepeatable, beyond conscious aspiration...”

At once a document of a friendship and a poetic testament to the creative process, Thank You, My Pain offers audiences a rare glimpse into the devotion, vulnerability, and joy at the heart of artistic life.

Running time: approx 35 mins, followed by a 20 mins conversation with both Salvadori and DePlume.

The screenings are presented by Ensemble Music, a new company run by Rob(ert) Farhat, in association with International Anthem Recording Co.

Alabaster DePlume: website | instagram | bandcamp
Rebecca Salvadori: website | instagram

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