Scott Barley
Barley in 2024
Born	Cardiff, Wales
Education	Kingston University University of South Wales Cardiff Metropolitan University
Known for	Cinema
Notable work	Sleep Has Her HouseHinterlands
Movement	Slow cinema experimental film remodernist film
Occupations	Film director artist musician writer
Website	scottbarley.com

Scott Barley (born 11 November 1992) is a Welsh filmmaker, artist,drone musician, and writer.^[1][2][3]

His work often focuses on creating mood and sensory experiences rather than following traditional narrative structures. His films have been associated with theremodernist andslow cinema movements, andecocriticism.^[4][5] Recurrent themes in his work are theanthropocene,nature,darkness, absence,cosmology,phenomenology,mereology andmysticism.^[6][7][8]

His filmmaking methods have been compared toDavid Lynch,Stan Brakhage,Philippe Grandrieux,Béla Tarr,Alexander Sokurov,Maya Deren andJean Epstein.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Since early 2015, Barley has almost exclusively shot his films oniPhone, working primarily alone. While his filmmaking is largely solitary, he has also contributed to the work of other filmmakers, most notablyIldikó Enyedi’s 2025 film,Silent Friend.^[13]

He is most well-known for the 2017 experimental film,Sleep Has Her House. Danish film critic, and former director of the European Documentary Network, Tue Steen Müller has described him as the "Anselm Kiefer of cinema".^[14][15][16]

Barley has citedBéla Tarr,Robert Bresson,Michelangelo Antonioni,Pedro Costa,Phil Solomon, Jean-Claude Rousseau, andNathaniel Dorsky among his favourite filmmakers.^[17]

Barley's imagery and focus on natural landscape has been likened to the romantic tradition ofThe Sublime within amodernist anddigital context. Critics and academics have drawn parallels withSleep Has Her House and the work ofCaspar David Friedrich,J. M. W. Turner,Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,Wagner'sGötterdämmerung and the ideas ofImmanuel Kant, among others.^[18][15][19]

Barley's approach to filmmaking is similar to that of other solo and poeticavant-garde filmmakers,Stan Brakhage,Jonas Mekas,Nathaniel Dorsky andPeter Hutton, but thepost-production process is unique to both mainstream and avant-garde filmmaking practices.^[20][21]

"I always begin a film almost like one would keep a diary. I have no idea, or agenda to make a film. I simply document. I shoot what attracts me, random things, animals, variances in light, the water, the stars; simply what draws me in on different days, different nights, in different places. Once I have built up a body of footage, I start to see connections. These pieces of footage could be taken months or even years apart – and miles apart too. [I] then invisibly stitch [the different shots] together into one larger shot or sequence. But these connections between different pieces of footage all happen organically. I never force these connections. I never force a film when it doesn’t come. The films find me – not the other way round [...] All my films have been made this way. Some happen quicker than others. Once these connections are established, a narrative - through images - begins to germinate."

• Scott Barley atIMDb
• Official website

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