Film Categories: Religion

  • A Celebration of Darkness

    A woman with a tortured past is triggered to take an unexpected walk down memory lane, she finds herself face-to- face with her inner child. Giving her a chance to make peace with her past. Does she find a way to celebrate darkness or does she become engulfed forever by it? In 2015, Jaene turned 40. This lead her to become introspective about her unusual life history. From a childhood of severe abuse, neglect, psychiatric institutionalization and being in care, she grew to become a street involved sex worker by 20. She met Elder, Isaac Day from Serpent River First…

  • Somnium Lapidum (Dream Stones)

    This stop-motion 16mm film offers an audiovisual meditation on the material animation of stones. The concept is inspired by Camillo Leonardi’s “Speculum Lapidum”, published in 1533, which describes the magical healing virtues of a variety of stones, categorized by colour. The character-based animated vignettes are inspired by the woodcuts in “De Hortus Sanitatis”, a natural history encyclopedia published in 1485, which details various methods of harnessing the power of gems. It was believed at the time that a given gem’s powers could be absorbed through focused viewing. Proposing an analogy between this belief and attraction to cinema, this film offers…

  • I Want To Kill Myself

    Contemplating suicide: a biography.

  • Mount Misery

    Emotionally drained after learning of the death of her long estranged sister, an elderly woman spends the day lost somewhere between her past and present and her conscious and subconscious mind. In this state, she ponders the inevitabilities of life, death and the hereafter. “Mount Misery” won Best Film prize at the Black International Cinema, Berlin film festival, 2017.

  • The Fruit of our Womb

    One night, Andrea, a young woman, comes back home from a party, a bit drunk. Her loving girlfriend Marie advices her to drink some water before going to sleep, so as to avoid an hangover. Andrea goes to their messy kitchen where she can’t find any proper water… until she sees a bottle of Holy Water, shaped in Holy Mary. She drinks it all. Some time after that night, Andrea finds herself vomiting a lot and getting bigger and bigger. Marie starts to worry that Andrea could be pregnant, but it’s impossible, Andrea never had sex with a man! They…

  • Sum (Heart)

    Based on ideas of Zen Buddhism and rooted in the 7 Grandfather teachings, Sum (Heart) is a rumination on death, grief and letting go. Starting out as a visual mourning song to Wendy Babcock, Mr Toqui Wong and Jack, empty landscapes represent the yearning for the company of dead friends. Water becomes a metaphor for grief and mourning, the ebbs and flows of nature reminds us of the cycle of life which transforms into a stark ode to a new day and new beginnings. I put all my sadness, prayers and hope into this trilogy while still aching for their…

  • Viloma

    Kalpana is a young artist from the Indian state of Kashmir, who is blessed with an unusual talent that she has painstakingly learned from her aging guru. As her hand creates an artistic image on paper, a second meaningful picture miraculously materialises when the picture is rotated, depicting the antithesis of the first image, and invoking an ancient Hindu belief that life is full of dualities. Urged by her guru to share this talent and its underlying message with the world, young Kalpana enters her “reversible creations” in an international art contest … with surprising results. The story is told…

  • David In Brief

    The story of David and Goliath is one of the oldest narratives of all time. The legend continues to resonate with individuals and cultures from around the world and offers a perspective that everyone has the power to overcome impossible situations, even when the odds of failure are high. For years, I hid from my own Goliath: personal struggles with sexual identity and, questioning who I was as an individual. Like so many others, I had to risk relationships and acceptance to be the man I wanted to be. I wanted to hear how others, with larger-than-life obstacles, faced their…

  • HyperLightness ad absurdum

    An optical illusion afterimage deconstructs geometrical solid’s structures and reveals its divine progressions. Dynamic symmetry interlaces self-reflective mirror images of the original icon and creates a hypnotic procedure leading to extreme consciousness and visual telepathy. The Symbolism of Kabbalah’s and Christian omnipotent God reveals itself as Buddhist or Taoist illusionary rotational mandalas or yantras emphasising Maya’s attributes where space-time is an illusionary phenomena and paradox is latent in every polarised assumption only culminating in Absolute absurdity ad aeternum… HyperLightness ad absurdum reveals the optical characteristics of hyperspace and hypertime in a supersymmetric continuum by means of an optical illusion which…

  • Ritual

    “Ritual” is a non-linear video piece that explores cosmic mythmaking. As the video loops, a cyclical story of birth, separation, transformation, purification, death, and rebirth is told through provocative imagery and lyrical text.