Films - Reveries from Cistae memoria
Reveries from Cistae memoria
"Reveries from Cistae memoria" is a meditation on the loss of loved ones, innocence, and memory. From the very beginning the film was conceived as a multi-layered film containing more to the "story" than what is immediately apparent on first viewing. The film uses stop-motion animation to explore the subjective and oneiric journeys through fragmented and reconstructed memories. Within the film the use of Linnaean classifications describe the steps of memory creation, transformation and storage. The film weaves the true-life letters and stories of my grandparents with fabricated and recalled memories and images to impress on the viewer the frustration and sublime beauty of fractured memory. The look of the film was inspired mainly by wunderkabinettes and pre-cinema optical toys which were used as metaphors for the storage and playback of the memories.
Taking inspiration from a recent reading of Salman Rushdie's book Haroun and the Sea of Stories, I wanted to express my frustration with a number of people and events that were taking place around me at the time without making this protest the main focus of the film. I felt that subtlety was more appropriate than an obvious declaration. Ironically this quiet protest was missed by many of the very ones who said the film was only a glossy film with no substance.
The film has now played at a number of festivals and has won awards from Black Maria, Athens, Humboldt and Vision Festivals.
