#directorsstatement

Short version: 

Why Do Flowers Die is an animated short film about a young girl who must come to accept that the flowers she grew for her mother will not last forever. Just as flowers die and grow again, precious moments in life are fleeting. The most important thing to remember is that there will always be more.

Full version:

Anchor was an extension of a photography series for which I used Nan Goldin's 'The Ballard of Sexual Dependency' as my starting point. The idea was that the film would happen in a series of frames, taken from my photographs, and that the piece itself would capture a snapshot of a single moment shared between two women. We look out with Joni as Olivia observes her. We can see how Joni mirrors Olivia physically and aesthetically and question what they are looking for in themselves. I consider the film to be an ekphrasis, in response to art, and an experiment. Anchor is my first film and it is a personal story.

The film is set in Autumn, a mutable season that represents the end of one moment and, after the grieving process has passed, the start of the next. It was always intended that the sound would carry an equal weight to the image, so it has been used to build the cuts, literally creating an allegorical landscape of the main characters feelings. For this we worked with Johnnie Burn (The Lobster, 2015) and Jonny Platt at Wave Studios as well as Lola Lennox who wrote and recorded an original piece to frame the film.

Anchor explores feelings, by coming at it from a place of rigid constraints it was also possible to explore the dullness of extreme feeling. The piece captures a woman as she reaches the full saturation of what she is able to feel, to the point where everything flatlines and nothing but a dull ache remains. The result is subtly surreal. What is taken from this moment between the two characters is how anti-climactic these moments can be, how unreal they are even as they are happening. I hope your experience of it creeps up on you much as understanding often does.

It is indulgent... but so is eating ice-cream for lunch in bed.

Madeleine

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If you would like to be sent our press pack in pdf format or a link to the film please contact myself or Yanna directly.

When I was a child, I never played with dolls.  I only played with animal toys which I gave their own personalities and made up my own stories. Because of my great love for animals, I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was young. I wanted to mean something for the animals. It hurts me to see that so many species have gone extinct within the last century, mostly because of humans. They hunt, destruct natural habitats, slaughter animals for their skins, meet, teeth and for useless research. Our environment is still changing drastically by our hands, getting destroyed for living and harvesting. To make people aware, emotional storytelling within movies can convey this message.

This is the main reason why I started studying a Master course in Animation. I feel this urge to be part of writing those amazing stories and realizing them to astonishing movies. I want to invoke wonder, like Pixar within their very first series of movies. But most of all, I want to touch people’s hearts, make them feel sympathy and compassion for characters which have to deal with harsh decisions in life. And make the audience feel good with a happy ending, to let them know it’s never too late to change.

The movie will be about a poacher, who is just an ordinary man trying to make a living. Because he is poor, he doesn’t have any other choice than getting money by poaching. On the moment he wants to shoot an powerless Leopard, he changes his heart and mind.

A story works because of emotional impact with a meaningful theme for deeper emotional triggers. To get the people emotionally involved within this story, the focus will be on love, fear, death and doing the right thing. You need the emotional connection with the character to relate to by exposing a characters vulnerable side as early in the story as possible. Another way to get people involved is by building emotional tension triggering deep-rooted emotions. Emotional tension is about fear, betrayal, psychological wounds which creates the most tremulous tension of all. Emotional reactions depends on personal experience though, but most people have been through the state of loving someone deeply.

To invoke sympathy for the animals, one character will be an intelligent animal with human behaviors. Anthropomorphism suits animated movies and can create empathy within human beings, because they can relate to their pets.  If a characters personality doesn’t feel human, the audience cannot relate to these characters. That is why people will be able to relate to how the animals feel and understand the story from their side. People remember movies which touch them in an emotional way and astonishes them more intensely.

Because of being the director, storywriter and animator of this story, all strings are within my hands. For me, this is really a way to explore the world of animation and learn about the different roles animation movie makers have. Animation is different from live-action movies and can more easily address harsh stories to a public in a different way. It can soften the message by using different visuals.