Original Film Title: Faith in the Underworld
Directors Name: Yantra de Vilder
Writers Name: Yantra de Vilder
Producer: Yantra de Vilder
Country of Origin: Australia
Country of Filming: Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom
Language: English
Runtime: 31 minutes 35 seconds
Film Description:
This is a story of love and loss.
I created this performance art piece over 3 years during my journeys to Canada, Glastonbury, France and living on the Central Coast of NSW Australia. This project documents the journey through the Underworld as described through the 7 gateways of the Sumerian Myth of Inanna. I am grateful to Dr, Barbara Bickel for being my guide through this archetypal trance journey, which I did in my studio at the Banff Centra for Arts and Creativity where I was on a composer residency in the magnificent Rocky Mountains of Banff. I composed the music for this project in Canada and collaborated with the wonderful violinist Laura Reid. I then returned to Australia where I looked after my mother Faith during her descent through dementia and death.
And now over a year has past since Faith’s death, and it feels like the right time for me to complete this underworld process and come into the light and joy of life again.
Another important narrative is that this film was made during the pandemic – masks, isolation, lockdown.
Faith in the Underworld is not an easy journey, and it will not appeal to everyone. It’s style is slow and meditative, almost Butoh like in it’s revelation. And it is a dark story as it goes through the stages of grief connected to my divorce, my mother’s dementia and subsequent death.