Current Project.
A Chamber Play.
A Stop-Motion Short.
Synopsis.
The final thoughts in a haiku, a Japanese form of poetry, capture the passionate and rebellious philosophy student Valentine taking her own life with an overdose of medication. Abandoned by her own relatives and fellow students, she found a final anchor in Johanna, an older woman who works in a senior position at an insurance consulting firm. Valentine and Johanna cultivated a close friendship that also took on sexual overtones – a refuge for both of them.
Johanna is now confronted with Valentine's unexpected death. She finds it difficult to allow herself to feel her grief and suppresses it with stubborn devotion until she threatens to break down and lose the balance in her orderly life. In desperation, she decides to visit an alternative medicine practitioner. Zahra, a professional medium, offers the promise of renewed contact with a recently deceased person. Born with a face shaped like a mirror that enables her to connect with the world of the dead, she acts as a mediator in the dialogue between life and death. Not entirely at peace with her professional activity, Zahra is thinking of quitting, unaware that her next patient, Johanna, will take that choice away from her.
Johanna sees Zahra's practice as an opportunity to come to terms with Valentine's death as quickly as possible; one more item on her checklist to tick off; even though she doesn't really believe in the spiritual. She believes she will receive answers from Valentine that will explain her sudden death. However, this proves more difficult than expected. What initially develops as an intimate conversation between Johanna and Valentine turns into an argument as time goes on. Johanna tries relentlessly to maintain control over her emotions until an escalation becomes inevitable. The ritual breaks down and Johanna has no choice but to direct her resulting anger at the medium Zahra. A confrontation ensues, the mirror face shatters, one person survives. Amidst the shards, Johanna can finally allow herself to grieve, but at what price?
Concept Art.
Room Frontview
Concept Art.
Room Backview
General Info
(Set- & Puppet
Building)
Ines Nungässer, Manon Boulens,
Livio Frauendorf
A Chamber Play Between Authenticity and Poetry.
Logline.
An intimate play about processing of the death of a loved one in our modern, meritocratic Swiss society, realised as a stop-motion short film. A reckoning with the modern system of forced repression.
Behind the Styleframe.
Styleframe.
Johanna and Zahra
Behind the Styleframe.
Styleframe.
Zahra embalms the corpse of Valentine.
Behind the Styleframe.
Styleframe.
Zahra looking into the mirror.
Actuality.
With its theme of death, the film addresses a subject that will concern every human being at some point in their lives.
This universal theme is placed in the context of our current circumstances in the short film, literally holding up a mirror to our performance-oriented society. The film questions our way of dealing with grief, which has increasingly developed into a repression of the facts.
In a world where scientists are researching ways to prolong our mortality, there is a great discrepancy between life and death. For many people today, our awareness of mortality is fading and it is becoming the dark, unknown end of our journey.
In our Christian-based society in Switzerland, ceremonies held to say goodbye to a person are often a single tragedy, where one can only hope that it will finally be over.
But saying goodbye to a loved one should no longer be an item on a checklist that one has to take time for. Ultimately, the farewell should take place between melancholy and joy, viewing death as life.
This short film aims to denounce this system of repression and, above all, to raise awareness of it.
Behind The Scenes.
