Pavor Nocturnus

Pavor Nocturnus is a feature-length experimental nonfiction film about sleep, or more particularly an empirical inquiry into the quotidian process of going to sleep. The film explores the physical gestures and subjective fantasies and fears of people as they prepare for sleep. It contains an edge of sexual tension—of play around the fraught landscape of flesh, vulnerability, and intimacy—but it engages equally with boredom and the banal, semiconscious routines of bedtime. The film will bring together a series of sequences that reflect on fear, loneliness, obsession, desire, voyeurism, the ambiguous and influencing power of the camera, and the impulse to connect with others, both through media and apart from them.

Research partners would help me undertake archival research for this project and assist with preproduction, on shoots, and with editing and distribution. They will learn professional skills in all these domains.