Us and the Night

2024, 67 minutes, 4:3, colour, sound

A film by Audrey Lam
with Umi Ishihara and Xiao Deng

Night after night, two travellers cross paths at a university library. The library's symmetry, rhythms and recurrences form a fantastic geography for their stories and adventures.

Director’s note

I liked thinking about how a new language can be an invitation and a game; how reading steps us into the familiar and the unknown; and how libraries can be like fantastic, exhilarating adventures to the sea, into the universe, to anywhere else. Stories and accounts are part of what the film is about. I hope the viewer -- a reader, of sorts -- will find other things too.

Production note

I shot and edited the film myself over the years. I filmed on 16mm on an Eclair ACL and a Bolex reflex camera and edited digitally. Xiao is a jeweller who has been in my short films before and Umi is a filmmaker; neither are actors. I started filming them at the library ten years ago and returned to keep filming the library over the years. It's a place I used to work at twenty years ago. The time spent and the time passing became part of the film.

Premiere

2024 Prismatic Ground