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Original Film Title: Against the Waning Light
Director’s Name: Paul Loftus Murnaghan
Writer’s Name: Paul Loftus Murnaghan
Producer: Paul Loftus Murnaghan
Country of Origin: Ireland
Country of Filming: Ireland
Language: English
Runtime: 26 minutes
Film Description:
Resonating deep in the abyss, slowly turning, endlessly entangled. It senses us punch and dream. Cloud and stone tune to its ancient song. A song that we have long forgotton.
This film takes a less Human-centric view of existence, it is without words and attempts to communicate through sound and light reflected. It is shot using only natural light. Our attention is focused on and through a sole female Freediver, as she is drawn deeper and deeper into the fathomless ocean. She experiences something vast and ancient that sets her on a journey through landscapes untouched by human hands.
Freediver* Nina McGowan leads us through diverse vistas, supported on this Animist journey by choreographer Cindy Cummins, with a singular soundtrack composed by Murnaghan.
It was while watching light dance on the ocean floor that Murnaghan conceived the idea for this work. He began feeling observed, growing aware of another presence. At first this inspired a musical composition but that quickly evolved into movement and video, visually merging human and non-human landscapes, retracing an ancient departure, from deep seabed to the forested hills.
Although there is no dialogue, a form of communication does occur. There is exchange through light, it hints at a metaphysical ecological. Things we are on the cusp of knowing, while in the process of destroying. There is no sign of human presence other than the diver. Here she acts as a conduit, as animals and humans do in nature, passing material from one space to another. The film posits the earth as a sentient being, with an open ended narrative that allows the viewer room to evolve ideas that surface from within.
As part of this project Writer/Director Paul Murnaghan took the decision to screen in more unusual spaces, beginning with a large aquarium in Galway, Ireland, (Atlantaquaria) on Culture Night 2025, on to a Dance Festival at Uillinn in Skibbereen, Co. Cork, and most recently in Barcelona’s oldest cinema, Cinema Maldà, in The Gothic Quarter. Meeting house Square in Dublin’s Temple Bar will host a large outdoor projection for two nights, March 19th and 20th , looping each half hour from 7.30 to 11.00 P.M. All are welcome, as it intended that people should find this work by accident.