Cerulean Limerence Premier At Stone & Wood Byron Bay

Last Thursday evening we gathered to witness something truly special.

A few years ago, Filippa came to Maria with a dream of making a film. What followed was years of imagining, planning, applying for grants, gathering a team, solving problems, and slowly bringing an idea to life. Last week, that dream had its first community screening at Stone & Wood Byron Bay.

While the film sits under the Atmosea banner, this is very much Filippa's creative vision — a beautiful example of what can happen when an artist has an idea and a community gets behind it.

Watching Filippa's dedication to craftsmanship, creativity, and storytelling come to life on screen was inspiring to say the least. Maria and I both sat there with tears streaming down our faces the first time we watched it through — not because it's a sad film, but because we were so incredibly proud of what Filippa had created.

The whole project feels like a reminder to just begin. Ask the questions. Learn everything you can. Tell people about your idea. Ask for help. If you're passionate about something, chances are there are other like-minded people out there who would love to help make it happen too.

One of those people for us was Jess Flynn.

Jess believed in this project from the very beginning. She encouraged Filippa to apply for the grant that helped make the film possible and was one of its biggest champions. I big thank you to Stone & Wood for jumping on board to back the film. Jess very suddenly passed away during the early stages of production, but we feel her generosity, encouragement and beautiful way of being are woven through this film. In many ways, it wouldn't exist without her.

We can't wait to share the film with you all soon. But first, we want as many people as possible to experience it in person — to gather together, share an experience, and connect with one another.

If you know of a special place where you'd love to see a screening, we'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or send us an email.

Here is an excerpt from Filippa's Speech:

When I was 20 all I wanted to do was to work on movies so after school my course steered straight for a film studio in San Francisco to go explore the magical world of movie making. For years I stayed there, spell bound, under qualified and terrified by the flickering pace and highly collaborative nature of film making.

I got a job doing odd jobs at a studio even though I barely knew anything about it and survived by skimming tutorials at night and being perpetually late for the early morning call times.

It was before I had made a leap to live of my painting as a career and I was twisting and turning the creative professions to find a way where I could fit in without going for the impossible idea of being a painter by profession in the 21st century. But after a while in the film industry I realised it was just that I needed to go and do.

I took a leap into painting full time and my work suddenly went from long hours on the computer and feeling lost in the collaborative hive of film sets to working alone in an attic with some watercolours, no call times, no collaboration. I moved to France and the next 10 years I worked alone on my art and was very happy to not be a small part of a great big project with many moving parts but the only part of many small projects. The lone dreamer of my universe and the sole maker.From idea to process to final work I could move through the process alone and it made me feel free and unlimited. Painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture..

Always one page, one frame, one take. Solitary work with few time frames.

But ever so often an idea would come to me. Something that didn't fit on canvas.

Something much bigger with sound and movement and story. So this year, after a good nudge nudge from a friend (Thank you Maria and thank you Jess Flynn), I started writing and dreaming up a film. l've been longing to work creatively with others and dreaming of a project that is much to big for my own two hands. Something that got me out of my studio and into the natural world alongside other creative people. from this longing, Cerulean Limerence was born.

Through crossing of paths with other brilliant artists and thinkers, actors, surfers, musicians this projects has slowly taken shape.

The process has virtually been learning to shoot film ON FILM from the beginning in real time as the project was rolling along. Lugging a 60 kilo mirror up a lonely beach, navigating 50 year old film cameras acting their age, filming underwater scenes in surging swell over sharp rocks, pretending to make a big bonfire without actually making any fire at all and gluing hundreds of rose thorns on to soft belly skin. It could not have been made without the beautiful people who entered this artwork with me.

Gabrielle, our star, who paddled water in a dress for 3 hours only to find out we had accidentally been taking photos instead of filming, you're a star!

The ethereal music, composed to each scene by the genius that is Lake Kelly is a true treat to the ears and spirit.

Fay, whose wise voice leads us along the journey. She blindly responded on the call of "Very old wise woman who wants to come and get weird for an art project" in a local facebook group.

And she did not disappoint.

And everyone else who's hands touched this project and made it magical.

An honourable mention to my little family who are always immersed in whatever project I am in, voluntarily or involuntarily. This film has been made with lots of little children running around our feet and edited through many late nights after bedtime.

To Atmosea, who for years has entrusted me with a creative freedom that is hard to come by and supported me wholeheartedly through many quirky ideas.

To Stone & Wood, thank you for believing in this project and giving it wings to fly. Trusting a film maker who, suspiciously didn't seem to be a film maker on paper at all, to make a film that was well.. a little hard to describe and just had to be seen.

Sometimes not being a professional is an advantage. Not being familiar with how things are usually done can mean you will end up doing things in an unusual way and end up with an unusual thing.

Somehow, not a single scene being in focus, kinda works. Dreams are never really in focus.

These days, the mark of human hands is becoming increasingly rare and special. The jittery shake of a hand trying to hold the camera still, the texture of handmade props and the authenticity of emotion on real human faces. Things we can no longer take for granted in the arts. Surrealism, part of the classical arts canon in both painting and film is now appropriated by machines. Artificially made by the tap of a finger. It feels both like an honoring of the past and a promise for the future to pursue any creative project relying on human hands, human heart and human intelligence.

I hope you enjoy this film, its a dreamlike journey of poetry and a love letter to the natural world, in particular this natural world right around us.

The land, Bundjalung land, that has held, inspired and heightened this film.

We are forever grateful for all the joys it gives us and the original custodians of these lands and waters: We acknowledge and thank you.

Please enjoy a voyage on the cerulean spectrum. Without further ado, I think our mother has a letter of wisdoms for us that we are overdue to read.

Upcoming Screenings: 

Steam sound track composed for the Film by Lake Kelly below: 
my fave track is 'Low Tide in the Jungle on Filipa's Island' 

If you know of a special place where you'd love to see a screening, we'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or send us an email. contact@atmosea.com.au