As the world’s primary Lingua Franca, English has the largest number of multilingual speakers that ever existed in any language. In her new film, Nicoline van Harskamp will represent a situation where English has developed into “Englishes”: a language of original non-standards that is spoken between people who have a different mother tongue. The film uses its subject-matter as its medium and it is set in a future that looks exactly like the present, where “Englishes” is spoken fluently and confidently by everyone, in mutual understanding but certainly not without any friction.

Van Harskamp has been granted funding from the Mondriaan Fund in the Netherlands for overall research on the topic, as well as international co-funding for the staging and recording of events around the research. A scenario will be developed throughout 2014 and 2015, in consultation with production studio Anotherfilm Rotterdam. It will be offered to film funders internationally. Filming expected to commence fall 2015.

August 2014: filming in London at the English Phonetics Summer Course (University of London)
September 2014: filming on the Swedish island Gotland with the Baltic Art Centre and Film pa Gotland
October 2014: filming in London with Kunstraum, followed by a solo exhibition