Eyes of Sorrow Moon
digital and super-8, 8 minutes, black and white, 2016
Set in a timeless village occupied by shadowy characters and sentient creatures of the night, a strange child, distrusted by the community, must turn to the dark arts to appease his hunger, his loneliness, and his vengeance. Presented in partnership with The Caligari Project, a multi-disciplinary, city-wide public festival celebrating German Expressionism. It features William Bessai-Saul and Alice Willett and the voice of Dr. Christina Stojanova. The music was composed and performed by Erik Sirke who was also the cinematographer. Production took place over one day in 2016 in the Department of Film production studio at the University of Regina with a small crew of AJ Leeks, Geremy Lague, makeup artist Ginette Hall, and puppeteers Chrystene Ells and Rania Al Harthi. It is about a boy who is rejected by his community so befriends various creatures, a spider, mouse, and moth, which leads to much chaos and destruction. My first plan to have a practical animation loop projected through a plexiglas disc using a strobe light proved too difficult to create given the tightness of the shooting schedule. New animation, based upon drawings by William, was created in post production. The film premiered at the Dunlop Art Gallery Mediatheque in Regina as a continuously repeating loop from October, 2016 to January, 2017. In November of 2016 it screened at two online film festivals, the PopNinja Horror short festival and the Festigious International Online Film Festival where it was awarded Best Horror Film. It was also awarded (in a tie) best performance at the SAIFF (Southern Arizona Independent Film Festival) in April 2017. In September 2017 it was featured in the online Frostbite International Film Festival in Colorado and at the Pile of Bones Film Festival. Also in 2017, the film was shown along with the unveiling of a new silkscreen print by Beth Liber inspired by the film at the Flatgrafika Print conference. In November of 2017 it was nominated for a Saskatchewan Independent Film Award of "SIFA" (see promotinal trading card presented to nominees). ADDITIONAL IMAGES
