The Crackling Glade

Director: Robert Williams

Year: 2011

Towards the end of her life Susan explores her relationship with her nineteen year old daughter Samantha. Throughout the film Susan is dying of cancer - although this is not expressed definitively to the audience. Although the main concern of the film is the mother-daughter interaction, a third character is imparted through the dialogue in the form of an absent father.

Director: Matthew Berka

Year: 2027

A SEASON IN SECRET brings together material both close at hand and far away. It is a meditation on things glimpsed at a distance and the limits of perception. What lies behind the screen is hidden and may only be hinted at through the language of visible images and sounds. The film takes some of its cues from the Japanese aesthetic concept of Yūgen, described in part by the 15th-century aesthetician Zeami Motokiyo: “...to stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands.”

Director: Ben O'Connor

Year: 2026

Robbie exists on the margins of society. He lives alone on a narrow boat in rural England with little means. He has found solace in isolation and a humble life. Unexpectedly he is contacted with the unwanted news of his estranged father’s death. This drags up emotions from the past that quickly become too much to bear… And so, the story begins… A journey back into his past. A journey on a motorcycle to find his mother. He drives, alone, through desolate landscapes, barren and mountainous, into the depths of his mind. A dream world where Robbie is forced to confront his past. Two stories emerge; memories from his childhood recurrently appear, fracturing the present where ex-lovers who have shaped his life confront him in surreal encounters. With time the two stories collide, past and present become one. The road leads in one direction, back to his childhood home and ultimately, his first and now final love; his mother. For where he began, he will now end and know himself for the first time.