HIEROPHANY

POLISH TITLE: HIEROFANIA

Nothingness bursts, and lets out something. From a dark, tarry mass beings emerge — genderless, looped and alone in repetitive, aimless motions. Everything changes, when one of them discovers in itself s o m e t h i n g. It extracts a red ball from within itself. Immediately, the ball starts getting bigger, shifting its shape and hypnotising all of the beings. They all unite in an ecstatic, ritualistic dance — because of an idea, a community is formed. The beings lose themselves and are engulfed by the abyss of the substance which resembles volcanic lava. From the cultivated object of a vaginal shape, a new life is born, a life different from the one that existed before — a colourful, diverse and gendered life.

The author shows hierophany in a symbolic way in the film — the manifestation of holiness in the world, described by the historian and philosopher of religion Mircea Eliade. The author presents an oneiric vision bordering on waking, dreaming and psychedelic experiences, using a language of intense colour and pulsating shapes. The animation is, at the same time, an expression of fascination by the work of cultural anthropologists and the life of traditional societies. On the other hand, it is an expression of a fascination by the life of simple organisms, observed as if through a microscope in a laboratory. "Hierophany" is a fantasy about the beginning — the beginning of the world? human? myth? religion? culture? — a journey into an imaginary world that does not require an unambiguous interpretation.

GENRE:

animation

COUNTRY:

Polska

RUNNING TIME:

4'

YEAR:

2021

COLOUR:

colour

DIRECTING:

Maria Nitek

SCRIPT:

Maria Nitek

EDITOR:

Maria Nitek

MUSIC:

Antonina Nowacka, Bogumiła Nowacka

SOUND:

Lucyna Wielopolska-Lorenc

ANIMATION:

Maria Nitek

PRODUCTION:

PWSFTviT (Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna)