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    The Fires of Pompey A Tale of Art, Football and a Volcano The Fires of Pompey reveals the hallucinatory artistic worlds and extraordinary life of Michael Jones—a self-taught artist, devoted Portsmouth FC (Pompey) fan, and volcanic eruption survivor. On January 22, 1973, without warning, the volcano Eldfell (Hill of Fire in Icelandic) erupted on the Icelandic island of Heimaey. Michael, along with fellow residents and volunteers, spent five months desperately battling to save the island’s town and harbor from destruction. Decades later, in 2013, I found myself in Iceland on an artist residency and filming trip. There, I met landscape photographer Sveinn Michaelson, who spoke of his English father, Michael Jones who had lived through the eruption on Heimaey. Now in his later years, Michael resides in Portsmouth, the UK’s only island city. Since his time in Iceland, he has been creating vivid, intricately detailed ink and pen drawings, many of which are formed by memories of the eruption, which continue to haunt and inspire him - a discovery only revealed to me during my first visit with Michael. This film delves into the genesis and artistic inspiration behind the creation of his art, uncovering the untold stories of his life as an Englishman in Iceland during the 1970s. What emerges is a portrait of a man whose life has been defined by two transformative experiences on two vastly different islands—Heimaey and Portsmouth. Through his extraordinary tales, The Fires of Pompey reveals one man’s psychedelic journey through survival and loss, art and landscape, football and fire.
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