"One of the most elegant and magical films I've seen in a long time. The underwater people are totally mysterious and compelling." -Bill Plympton
"An eerily beautiful rumination on the passage between birth and death." -Willamette Week
Haunting underwater portraits of people are juxtaposed with archival films of war and atrocities in this stylized film collage. Passage deals with the poetic and the terrible, with innocence and corruption. Taking its cues from the ethereal music of Gustav Holsts's "Neptune," the aqueous portraits allow each person's vulnerable core to surface, exposing a deep primal innocence. Simultaneously, wars are waged, brutalities committed, and the worst of the human race evolves. But in this sea of humanity, all is not lost to the corruption of the human spirit.
Get the compilation DVD ("Fever Dreams and Heavenly Nightmares") including this and other Chel White films at AMAZON amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000H0M452/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all
Also on Netflix.
Passage made its world premiere in Film Harmonic, a program of short films and live orchestral accompaniment, performed by the Oregon Symphony, Portland, 2001.
Selected awards & screenings:
Official Jury Selection - 2002 Sundance Film Festival
Best Experimental Short - 2003 Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee
First Place, Experimental - 2001 Northwest Film + Video Festival
Best FilmScape - 2002 Arizona International Film Festival
Jury Selection - 2002 Florida Film Festival.
Jury Selection - 2002 Atlanta Film Festival.
Jury Selection - 2002 Filmfest Hamburg.