DUPLICATION LEADS TO DISAPPEARANCE II
THE SELKIE (8 min, b&w/color, HD 1080p)
Art video by ML. Experimental, spoken words. Self-produced / auto-produit.
SCREENINGS:
Premiere in Akureyri (Iceland) on October 26th-27th 2019 at Deiglan Gallery. Exhibition titled CANDICE ALMALIZA SELKIE “Only the cold air can wake me” / „Aðeins kalda loftið getur vakið mig”
FNC 49 MONTREAL:
In competition at Festival du Nouveau Cinéma of Montreal from 7 to 31 OCT 2020 // En compétition internationale des courts-métrages LES NOUVEAUX ALCHIMISTES au Festival du nouveau cinéma 49e édition à Montréal.
SYNOPSIS:
« Black sand all around. The Selkie vowed to drown as many hearts from the island and spy. Creature in the sea. Arm over arm, swaying!
« Du sable noir tout autour. La Selkie a juré de noyer autant de cœurs vivant sur l’île et surveille. Créature hors mer. Bras dessus bras dessous, se balançant ! »
Selkies (or Sylkies) are mythological beings capable of therianthropy, changing from seal to human form by shedding their skin. Faroese folklore tells of a vengeful Selkie who vowed to drown as many men from Kalsoy that people could link the arms around the whole island.
My « stone-hearted » Selkie is an interpretation of the seal wife crawling on the seashore and her desperate struggle to reach the sea… with anger.
In her head, she remembered:
VOW
He says: » She crawls to make him disappear. She makes a wish she will forget, saying: « Seals in the sea. Arm over arm, swaying!« . She used to shed her seal skin into darkened pebbles. Crowded. Black sand all around. Suffocating. She’s coming back. She breathes in one time and turns to stone again. Black pebbles rolling then. « Seals in the sea. Arm over arm, swaying!« . Stormy heads and hearts are coming. She grabs him from the stone. She makes a wish she will throw him into the deep sea. « Cross my heart and hope to die« . She had vowed to drown as many hearts from the island and spy. See! »
Text by Monade Li (2018)
CREDITS:
Director, editor: Monade Li
Camera: Monade Li & Snorri Þór
Original score: Scottis
Cast: Monade Li & Ásdís Sif
Sound design: ML & J. C. Scottis
Cello: V. Soboljevski
Original text: Monade Li
Off-voice: F. Ducarn
A prologue of the shortfilm Percival’s Perceived Pebble (2018): https://vimeo.com/289659420 ©2019 limonadeart, Paris
« With these 3 ‘cineplastic’ experiences, I worked on the spatio-corporal resonance. The body is stretched (like a vibrating string) in an endlessly undulating linear landscape, in an invading sea of sand and cries, then finally in a burial of fire stones. With Candice (I), The Selkie (II) and Deirdre (III), I tried to shed light on 3 female metamorphoses (in reference to the 3 muses) revealing the lights of our human condition which I decline in 3 tones: white (ice – fear), black (earth – death) and red (fire – regret) »
Monade Li, January 2023.