Be Still My Heart

When the arrow of Eros strikes the heart, we descend into the open wound to look for fulfilment. Inside, we witness the process of falling first in, and then out of love. This journey of passion is taken through a series of exchanges between increasingly complex shapes, representing the emotions and sensations that love evokes.

Director’s statement
"Tell me what you long for and I'll tell you who you are."— James Hillman's quote really struck me the first time I heard it. Longing, yearning, is the primary activity of the soul. Following the end of a long-term relationship it became painfully obvious to me that the object of my most ardent desire is that of romantic love fulfilled, and a most idealized version of it at that. I felt as if only this were able to complete me, and in chasing this ideal, I — of course — heaped one disappointment upon another. This process of trial and error started to resemble that of alchemy: how does lead turn into gold, and how does disappointment become knowing? And what happens when — unwittingly — we turn away from wanting to fulfill the desire and towards getting to know it? And finally: what if we come to realize that the object of our longing isn't found in the external world, or rather, it's not the external world where it is found? These are the questions my film became centered around.