Olympia
1984/1998, 11 minutes, super 8 to SD video
synopsis:
The ultimate origin story, eleven grueling minutes of a home birth. Midwives and friends surround a naked woman bulging with life as she endures the last eternal moments of her pregnancy and a child arrives. The grainy, black-and-white super-8 film softens the visual experience, while the pulsating soundtrack recalls approaching helicopters or jackhammer job-sites–birth from the point of view of the forthcoming baby. The camera never flinches; even as the new human crouches on mama’s flattened belly and the music eases into hypnotic low string meditations, and the viewer aches for release into the comfort of the family circle, still the afterbirth must emerge before the film pulls back to reveal an ordinary living room, an ordinary day.
credits:
score: Donovan Skirvin
cinematography & edit in camera: Rankin Renwick
additional edit: Tim Scotten