Studies under mask, light, and blood

Savana

The story takes place in the landscapes of La Spezia, where urban and rural environments intertwine. Water plays a primary role as a form, alongside the circle (e.g., bicycle wheels, pizzas, clocks…), which sets the rhythm of the character’s life, dynamically accelerating until it becomes very fast. The overlapping forms invite the viewer into the cyclical rhythm of the short film, moving from the spinning bicycle wheel to the washing machine drum in the character’s bathroom, from a freshly tossed pizza to the delivery mailbox, and finally to a dead-end wall. Savana is a race against oneself and against others; it’s a matter of decision and unpredictability — it’s black or white.

GHOSTS

Energy cannot be created or destroyed. When we die, where does our energy go? Inspired by Vauhini Vara's essay "Ghosts", in which she prompted Al to help her write about her sister's passing, "GHOSTS" takes us on the emotional journey of grief. We see a ghost figure trying to get through to her sister, who is still alive, and let her know she's still around somehow. There are two poems in this piece, one is a poem written by GPT 3, and the next is the director's (Oriana Mejer) response to it. This film uses spoken word poetry, TouchDesigner motion graphics, and is originally scored by French musician Taime.

Miniaturen Teil 1

Omnibus film with 13 short films by students of the HfG Ulm

Reflektion

Work Without Mistakes

The desire to grow closer to yourself will lead you to disappear. The simple desire to get a closer look at yourself makes you see yourself disappear. The possibilities of recording are limited.

Martha & Haroldo: An Essay on Living

A sensitive study on human relationships and the passage of time. Through the lens of directing and editing, the film observes the nuances of daily life and the resilience of connections.

Achromatic

A perspective on everyday things.

Falso Cognato

A man tormented by his shadow gets tired of feeling bad.

Vertigem Branca

What remains for me is to promote my own ruin. Aware of inevitable loneliness, the incarnation of cruelty.

The Loop

A first-year film student is invited to document an eccentric audio engineer's historic discovery but finds himself more enraptured by the idiosyncratic inventor than the discovery.

137.7

A semi-found-footage artistic film exploring shifting self-perceptions and the horror of liminality.

Seance of the Past

A person spends most of their life mourning the things they have lost, unable to move on. They frequent a silent but helpful medium and embark on a spiritual journey where they linger among their past lives.

The Starlings

Shadow plays flicker, birds call, and colour leaks into grey walls. In Starlings, live action collides with puppetry and poetic visuals as a teen girl transforms loss into light, reviving the fractured bond with her father through the fragile power of art.

Ground Control

A journey to an unknown star, a children's theatre play, an untalented writer and the fear of becoming the worst version of oneself. A mixture of live-action footage and animated scenes. A stream of (un)conscious stereotypes.

Yo, Diablo

Joey works as a waiter for a hedonistic community of summer holiday makers in a small Mediterranean paradise. It is unclear if their exaggerated behaviors are due to the fact that the summer is coming to an end or if its just the last of their summers.

Green Bay

Set beneath a surreal green sky on a distant, crumbling world, the film captures the last survivors of a dying civilization—women who perform a synchronized ritual dance to summon an ethereal extraterrestrial presence from another realm.

dei notturni splendori

“And, 'twixt the shadows and frights of nocturnal splendors, My beloved will secretly be hiding. Say what you will, say what you may.” The sound of a distant whistle and theorbo calls a sleeping singer through the empty streets of Stuttgart in a midnight journey to the opera house. ‘dei notturni splendori’ is an experimental opera film made for the Staatsoper Stuttgart in the early months of the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown. Anderson Matthew captures the singer Helene Schneiderman through a midnight dream with a hand-cranked kino camera in an ecstatic 35mm photo roman, in search for her own performance of the Tarquinio Merula madrigal Folle é ben chi se crede from 1638.

Subterranean

Returning to his hometown one last time, a wayward love rat reignites friendships and reopens old wounds in one self-destructive weekend.

Untitled Static

A visceral journey through dysphoria in the internet age.

Maine Man

A loop of a guy in Maine hanging out in his room.