Ancestress

Inluences et références

The idea of a funeral procession came from conversation with Bjork about paying respects to her mother on the land where Hildur use to pick herbs. Bjork pointed to Kurosawa’s Dreams (Rêves, 1990), the fox wedding scene as reference for the precision of the song & choreography. I began drafting concept art and referencing East Asian scroll paintings of processionals, featuring bodies graphically staged against landscape. And evolved the story to center around the idea of a “mikoshi” or spirit vessel. In this case, the procession carries bjork’s mother’s spirit through a gong to its final resting place.<3

Andrew Thomas Huang

After completing “Ancestress,” Björk thought of her mother’s sendoff and realized what had been missing : nature. In extravagant movie funerals, she recalled, “There was always somebody burning the boat or throwing the ashes from a cliff. I just felt really weird to be inside a church where you were letting the spirit go. So I made up my own ritual.”
She spent a year working with director Andrew Huang and James Merry, her mask maker and co-creative director, to dream up and film a ritual funeral procession in a mountain valley, set to both “Sorrowful Soil” and “Ancestress.” (One part was shot beside a volcano, she adds, “Because it’s about the mother energy, so the volcano is obviously giving that.”) This visual requiem to her mother will come out when Björk is ready, after some of Fossora’s lighter, more puckish singles. Though wary of sensationalizing her grief, she hopes the film will help form a “protective bubble” around her mother’s memory.

Pitchfork

my dearest andy !! Andrew Thomas Huang
thank you for doing ancestress with me !!!
this is such a sensitive subject matter , i cannot even begin to express how grateful and honoured i was when you said you were up for it . your talent is so immense , not only as the expressive cinematic poet that you are but also your naturalness with any craft or technology there is , from film to AI , string-puppets to VR ,
we have done all of it together !!!
mutual core , stonemilker , black lake , family , the gate and now ancestress , it is an incredible journey i am so proud of .
you have become the documentarian of the most profound moments in my life and i don´t think it is a coincidence :
it is because of the immense capacity of your talent both emotionally and technically , it is because only you can take it on !!
thank you from the bottom of my heart
warmthness

Björk

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