Us and the Night
2024, 67 minutes, 1:33, 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 filmed and edited the film myself over the years. Xiao is a jeweller who has been in my short films before and Umi is a filmmaker too; 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.
Screenings
2025
October Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
August Austin Film Society
July Container: Brisbane Film Society
May Filmhuis Cavia
March Brooklyn Academy of Music, State Library of NSW
January Belgrade Documentary Film Festival DOK#7 (Young Jury Award)
2024
November Adelaide Film Festival, Houston Cinema Arts Festival
October Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
September MOV - Festival Internacional de Cinema Universitário, Asian Film Archive
August Melbourne International Film Festival (Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award nominee)
June Festival ECRÃ
May Prismatic Ground