Project Detail

Roger Ballen's Theatre of Apparitions

Synopsis

Images created by photographer Roger Ballen plunge the audience deep into his mind: an animated theatre of dismembered people, beasts and ghosts, dance, tumble, make love and tear themselves apart. A nightmarish subconscious world in black and white.

Details

Year
2016
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
5 mins
Format
digital
Director
Emma Calder, Ged Haney
Producer
Emma Calder
Executive Producer
Roger Ballen
Editor
Emma Calder
Screenwriter
Roger Ballen, Marguerite Rossouw, Emma Calder, Ged Haney
Sound
Emma Calder
Composer
John Webb
Principal cast
Roger Ballen

Production Status

Production Company

Pearly Oyster Productions Ltd

Emma Calder

Sales Company

c/o Pearly Oyster Productions Ltd

Emma Calder

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Black and white line drawing depicting a girl dancing around a cake that made of a man's body. You Are Not Part of The Cake

Director: Ting-Jui Chen

Year: 2025

A girl, Ping, faces conflict with her girlfriend Lala's homophobic and aggressive father. As tensions escalate, Ping is forced to take action to save herself and kills him. Then she makes him into a cake. This act becomes a ritual of transformation - a severing of ties, a step into anew phase of life. Official Selection London International Animation Festival 2025 Official Selection London Short Film Festival 2026 Official Selection Kaboom Animation Festival 2026

MUSCLE MUSCLE

Director: Karimah Ashadu

Year: 2025

With no single protagonist or linear narrative, the film immerses the viewer in a spectacle of strength through an intimate portrait of bodybuilders in the slums of Lagos. Inflated muscles, bulging veins and luminous skin glistening with sweat fill the screen. Shot almost entirely in close-ups, the camera hovers so near its subjects, moving softly like breath on skin, that at times figures become blurred, abstracted forms. Karimah Ashadu’s slow, measured pans across backs, chests and arms meditate on visibility, drawing attention to the embodiment and representation of the Black male body without rendering it singular or fixed. The metallic clang of barbells is punctuated with guttural sounds of exertion set against the ambience of the streets. Breath and muscle move in syncopated sonic choreography, and the men’s commitment to the ritual of maintaining the body is evident. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Forum Expanded - International Premiere

İki Laborantın Yorgun Saatleri (The Weary Hours of Two Lab Assistants) İki Laborantın Yorgun Saatleri (The Weary Hours of Two Lab Assistants)

Director: Burak Çevik

Year: 2026

At midnight, two lab assistants study an unknown substance using machines and procedures that are unclear to us. They pursue knowledge through the strict logic of the laboratory. As exhaustion settles in, one of the assistants brews Turkish coffee for the other, and the night shifts. The process becomes a fortune-telling, and the scientific gaze gives way to intuition. Moving from analysis to foresight, the two women imagine another method of knowing, a space where rational inquiry and intuitive perception coexist. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Forum Expanded - World premiere