The Archivist is dying
Director: Esme Laam
Crew:Writer: Esme Laam. Editor: Esme Laam
Email:sageokolo.film@gmail.com
Synopsis
A ghost shifts through centuries of footage in attempts to piece together a memory....
Through the use of archival material and manipulated photographs to generate a memory, 'the archivist is dying' is a personal, experimental short, invoking the mystical and academic in composition of poetry. The project uses footage from American Folklife Center Archive, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Internet Archive, Prelinger Archives, Black Film Archives, YouTube, LAPL, and is sound designed using Free Sound, The WPA and the Slave Narrative Collection, and original audio.
The thesis of the "disturbed familiar" (a disrupted memory) is built out of filmmaker, Jonas Mekas' belief that “home movies are […] lyric poetry […] created by the people” 'the archivist is dying' is showing Blackness, often gentle as it is joyous with the constant disruption, threat.
About the director
Esme Laam she/they) is a poet and filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland. They hold a B.F.A. in Film Production from the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. Their work has been recognized by the the YoungArts Foundation, the Baltimore Sun, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.
Often concerned with the inner worlds of Black women, their work seeks understanding through magical realism, both in its gentleness and its haunting. Raised on folktales, Guillermo del Toro, and Toni Morrison, their stories craft horror, grief and the wonder of adolescence together, building a visceral reality dubbed ‘tenderhorror’.
they love loons, vomit, and symbols with double meanings.