WHY THE STAR AND SHADOW CINEMA PARTICULARLY LOVES THIS FILM

Some Star and Shadow volunteers saw ETERNITY at the Rotterdam Film Festival in January 2011, and they madly fell in love with this film.

While at the moment, Hollywood films are desperate to have more and more effects on screen so that audiences connect to what the film is painstakingly trying to communicate (louder explosions to scare you, more music to make you cry, more special effects to impress you, etc), ETERNITY does the exact opposite: no special effects, very long shots, cameras hardly moving, no music, hardly any dialogue, not much happening, very simple setting, very few actors, no plot.

And yet, you can connect with this film on a level that most Hollywood films will never manage to reach: it respects you as an audience, it's not invasive, it talks about love in the most sensitive and discreet way possible. It's not patronising or moralistic.

With its slow pace, its silence, its lakes and mountains, and while seemingly doing so little, it connects with you before you have time to work out what happened. It's just amazing.

It is a slow film, and you will have to be patient with it - but if you stick to it, it will just throw that magic spell on you.

It is really a film that you should watch on a big screen - visually it is stunning, and it has that kind of pace that is hard to sustain while your flatmates are cooking pasta next to you, that twitter is giving you precious advice on #howtolose24poundsinonehour, and that your mum calls you to ask how your cough is doing. You just need that special setting.

It's a very special screening - don't miss it.

"I wanted the film to be about this memory of my father and our family.  The film will be separated into three parts tied together by the concept of “death”. 

The first part is inspired by the Thai belief that the spirit of the dead will return after three days to “walk the footsteps” of the place it cherished. 

The second part is the recreation of the story my mother always told me when she missed my father.  It is about the time when they met and fell in love.  The third part is about the daily life of our family in the days following my father’s death when we felt his spirit was still with us. 

In this film, the three parts will be connected by “darkness” as a metaphor for “the death of a loved one” that will stay with us forever. "

Great article about the film here: http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/professionals/programme/news1/ghosts-of-my-life/