Artist's film, 2025, 10 minutes
Writer and Director: Annie Goliath
Performer: Sophie Page Hall Voiceover artist: Beth Organ
Singer: Annie Goliath Composer: Black Astronaut
In the year 2054, marine ecologist Sophia investigates a mysterious mass die-off of cuttlefish along the coasts of England and Ireland, but is unable to solve the crisis alone. Turning to her Irish friend Muireann, they seek a solution through combining scientific research with ancient Celtic and modern Irish Neo-Shamanic practices. Muireann performs a shamanic ritual, entering an altered state to communicate with the cuttlefish, uncovering a deeper connection between the creature’s suffering and the broader environmental impacts of climate change. Through an empathic dialogue between the human and more-than-human world, the film explores the intersection of science, spirituality, and ecological crisis, highlighting the urgent need for a holistic approach to environmental restoration.
I used the genre of critical science fiction and the creative methodologies of entangled filmmaking, improvisation, and poetry. The entangled filmmaking process was an intuitive approach — listening, breathing, feeling, and improvising movement while filming — to co-create with the performer. The responsive film score and edit embraced improvisation. The poetic lines were an attempt to imagine this empathic dialogue, striving to re-establish respectful connections infused with wonder, awe, reciprocity and care.