Nothing Echoes Here: Empathetic Aesthetics in Short Fiction Filmmaking

About the event

Is it possible to convey the lived experience of grief, loss, and bereavement in a short film, by using the creative tools of filmmaking such as camera movement, shot length, focus, and editing?

That is the premise of Nothing Echoes Here (2022), a Brigstow-funded practice-as-research short film that charts a 24-hour period in the life of a woman and her two children, in the near-aftermath of the loss of their husband and father. The film explores the role that space – interior, exterior, familiar, non-familiar – plays for those grieving a profound loss, whilst utilising formal elements of film language and performance to portray grief in an authentic and empathetic manner, prioritising a sense of experience over story and narrative. In this panel the film’s writer/director and its lead actor will discuss, with Professor Rob Stone – an expert in empathetic aesthetics in cinema – the creative approaches and ideas behind the film.

The panel will open with the first ever screening of Nothing Echoes Here.