Death

Fleeting moments from the life a cyclist lived after his passing.

Writer, Director – Christian Meola
Producer – Julia Hughes
Director of Photography – Nicola Newton
Production Design – Nicole Machon
Editor – Jake Hammond

Death began as a challenge; an opportunity to discover how I would portray something as broad as the passing of a life. But rather than run away from the idea, I decided to lean into it and see where my instincts would take me. Instead of using narrative to evoke emotion through a character’s tragic experience, I wanted to experiment with how film could evoke what it’s like to lose someone through the bare essentials: image and sound. I thought it would be exciting (and relatable) to portray what death feels like for those still alive. What is the energy, the feeling of someone who has passed away? The idea of that energy being calm and serene, like summer golden hour, as opposed to bleak, numbing, or depressing, was what I connected to when making this piece. I kept coming back to environments we occupy every day (offices, kitchens, highways) and what they feel like once we know that somebody used to spend time in those spaces.