Aria in Vanitas

2023 |Spain |3:27

An exploration of life using mold, the very living thing that grows on decay, as both the conductor and material.

Director

Maria Sierra Valentina Catanho Mélanie Fernandez Francisco Máximo

MEET THE DIRECTOR

Maria Sierra, Valentina Catanho, Mélanie Fernandez, Francisco Máximo

Maria, Valentina, Mélanie and Francisco met at BAU during a Masters in Stop Motion Animation. With backgrounds as different as a BS in genetics, ceramics, product design and illustration, they met their interests in the shape of Aria in Vanitas, exploring life and death through living materials and fabricated movement.

SEE MORE FROM 2023

Bizarre

On an ordinary day, two garbage collectors are called in to clean and empty an abandoned house. Once inside the home, they are confronted with a disgusting display of garbage, fungus, mold and insects of all kinds. Everything's crawling, everything's moving, the house is alive. Yet, as they move forward, their appreciation of this biotope slowly shifts from disgust to fascination. From now on, all they have to do is enjoy the show.

2023 |France |4:13 |French

Cultivation In The USA

The mushroom boom is upon us and the cultivators within the US industry are all zeroing in on a decentralized yet global mindset. From the swamp lands of Louisiana to Southern California and all the way up to Washington State, gathered inside of this 16mm short film are the stories of the mushroom cultivators we met along the MycoWizards way.

2023 |USA |7:03 |English

Dead Trees

Unlike in most of the woodland of central Europe, in the Swiss National Park trees are left lying on the ground to rot away over decades. Since the park’s inception, this has been a hobby horse, a sign of unspoiled nature where humans have not intervened. The trees provide nourishment too for a fungus that is more than 1000 years old and has spread out over several hundred square metres. We roam the forest in search of the largest and oldest living creature in Europe and find instead an image.

2023 |Switzerland |14:00 |German

Ergot

Immediately after she pops the pill, the drug starts to work. The intoxication pushes her into a whirlpool of mycotic visions, sweeping her away on a trip that sets everything in colourful motion. Ecstatic feelings blaze and increase to a lust that burns unquenched. In the end, an unspeakable thirst remains. 

2023 |Austria |6:48

Hematic Cultures

After coating my own film with menstrual blood and silver for catching light, the film started to decompose on a period of 6 months during which I took samples of the micro fauna colonizing the film. I recorded the fungus growing on the film and then combine these images with intervened 16mm film. This performative experimental film is an exercise of thinking on the small ecosystems that exist on films and our bodies. It’s a sketch of mycelium and mycorrhizal connecting the film and the ecosystem. Suggestion: watch with 3D glasses.

2023 |Spain / Ecuador |2:20

Interstice

In the darkness of the forest, a sleeping body, its slow decomposition, activating the agency of the fungi. Within the shadows, life and death converge, as reflections of spirits and other entities rise to watch and move among the trees. In this ethereal dance, the fragility of existence and the resilience of nature intersect in a dreamlike symphony of becoming and transcendence.

2023 |Chile |11:27

La Longue Pluie (The Long Rain)

A continual rain falls on the jungle of mold in which Mérove has crashed. In search of a shelter, waterspouts and increasingly intrusive mushrooms will put the endurance of the astronaut to the test.

2023 |France |5:08 |French

Language Unknown

This film embraces plant and fungal sentience as fact and speculates how beings of the vegetal variety might approach interspecies communication with humans (who are far more sensorially limited). Leaves, mycelia, and roots playfully examine how humans experience the world, and the (supposedly) silent watchers consider what language those swift blurs of human might possibly understand.

2023 |USA |6:10

Lichen

An ambitious botanist arrives at a mysterious island with her partner, ready for a little vacation. In the idyllic landscape, the young woman finds an unprecedented species in her field that drives her to madness.

2023 |Spain |13:20 |Spanish

Medzzz Too Strong

Short doc on a few individuals who have tried high dose natural Native Earth Based sacraments in ceremonial settings.

2023 |USA |10:38 |English

Mushrooms and Friends

This is an experimental animated film about the world of mushrooms. It visually explores the lifecycle of mushrooms and how it connects to the ecosystem.

2023 |USA |2:41

Mycelial Rhapsody

In this animated short film a symbiont human-fungal hybrid creature expresses the longstanding and deep connections between the human and fungal worlds. The creature recites a poetic call to remembrance of these connections while a dreamlike montage of humans, fungal fruiting bodies and mycelium unfold to illustrate the poem.

2023 |USA |3:00

A Message from our Founder

Aria in Vanitas

Aria in Vanitas

Maria Sierra, Valentina Catanho, Mélanie Fernandez, Francisco Máximo

Bizarre

Cultivation In The USA

Dead Trees

Ergot

Hematic Cultures

Interstice

La Longue Pluie (The Long Rain)

Language Unknown

Lichen

Medzzz Too Strong

Mushrooms and Friends

Mycelial Rhapsody

Catch Our Spores