9 minute mixed-media animated film inspired by the life and tropes of the poet Emily Dickinson. The film is created from animated silhouettes of the American actress Elisabeth Gray integrated with stop-motion object and shadow theatre, and it includes a rich supply of contemporary artistic and cultural influences referenced in Dickinson's poetry and letters. The soundtrack follows a stimmung approach where voice is used in rhythmic phonetic patterns, with breathing, drones and vocal overtones, to create a hypnotic and sympathetic sonic landscape.
The poet posts her letters out through her window whence they travel “out upon Circumference— Beyond the Dip of Bell”. She waits for a response but the world is slow to answer. She sips nectar and flees volcanoes with a solitary bee, but later she conducts his funeral. When the world sends her a map of herself, it criticizes her with her own words, she stores up her poems in a chest which becomes her own sarcophagus, but the contents take on a life of their own carrying her ideas to the world beyond her own time.
Directed and animated by Suzie Hanna
Sound Design by Tom Simmons
