WATCH: This Short Film On Maltese Horse-Racing Is The Most Quirky Thing You’ll See Today
British photographer and documentary-maker Amelia Toubridge has captured one of Malta’s oldest racing traditions in a short film titled A Day at the Races.
Although the name lends itself to the traditional imagery associated with horse-racing – think Ascot, My Fair Lady and the like – the quirky, captivating film reveals how completely different horse-racing in Malta looks compared to it’s British counterpart.
Toubridge is a London-born photographer and documentarian. She’s won various prestigious awards, and has exhibited in high-profile galleries including her most recent show at the Design Museum in London. She published her first monograph, The Trouble with Amelia, in 2006, followed by two other monographs – Malta Diaries, 2006, and Joan of Arc had style, 2015.
In A Day at the Races, Toubridge uses sound and language distinctively to capture the character of the horse-racing community in Malta. The un-groomed, predominantly mono-chromed look of the film enhances that interesting polarisation between how the Maltese horse-racing tradition looks as compared with the glamorous, clean and bright imagery so typically associated with the sport elsewhere.
We love that the film has its own sense of humour – the crowning moment being a chilled AF horse popping his/her head out of what looks like a regular domestic building. But mostly we love how this filmmaker has captured a small corner of Malta’s culture that we’re not often reminded of.
Makes us want to grab a beer and spend our own day at the races. #AscotEatYourHeartOut