heartbeat of a Window
Format: Experimental short film
Duration: 22:00
Year: Summer 2022
A magical realist poem contemplating the transitional experience of consciousness between life and the afterlife. The film offers a tapestry of extraterrestrial drawings made from light and shadow, reflections in mirrors as portals, and ritualistic performances staged in imaginary yet natural landscapes. Its dreamlike, psychological register draws out curiosity and compassion around death, a subject that ordinarily sits in the darkest folds of the human mind.
The narrative draws on the artist's fear of losing their mother while living in exile, and their mother's own near-death story. Footage for Heartbeat of a Window was gathered gradually over five years, the resulting video collage speaking through geometry's metaphorical and mystical language.
Related terms: Reflection · Threshold · Materialized light drawing
Credits
Performers
Analemma: Nooshin Rostami
Dancer (Horse Head, Lyn-Kee-Chow's Junkanooacome): Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow
Figure in stairs: Nooshin Rostami
Figure in tunnel: Effat Amirkhalili
Camera: Harriet Bailey, Nooshin Rostami
Music and sound: Mani Nilchiani
Editor: Nooshin Rostami
Light drawings: Nooshin Rostami
Narrator: Nooshin Rostami
Farsi voice: Effat Amirkhalili
With support from Bricologista, Hosen Christian Ranger, Laura Anderson Barbata, Nicolas Solomon, NY Virtual Volcano Observatory Residency, and Effat Amirkhalili (mother)
Produced by Building 417 Studio, during the 2021–22 BRIClab Video Art residency