PRETTYBIRD director Jess Kohl brings out Royal Ballet principal Francesca Hayward’s darker side in this stunning black-and-white dance film, Siren, with a haunting narrative edge.
A visual journey into Hayward’s relationship with ballet, Siren draws on her early experiences of the art form to create a contrastingly intimate yet voyeuristic experience for the viewer. In collaboration with choreographer Michael Montgomery and designer Simone Rocha, director Kohl expertly crafts a hauntingly beautiful narrative that expresses the macabre origins of the ballets that captivated Hayward as a young child.
The film is available on NOWNESS and was also made possible by collaboration with executive producers, Jackson Forsythe (UNSIGNED) and Juliette Larthe (PRETTYBIRD). Siren is produced and presented by Films.Dance, a global platform and creative studio for
dance creatively directed by Jacob Jonas The Company.
Kohl commented, “It was a privilege to work with Francesca Hayward on my first dance film. We chose to shoot on 16mm black and white as we wanted to pay homage to the ballets that inspired Francesca in her childhood–she was drawn to macabre stories, and in Siren we want to represent the lesser known, darker side of the art form.”
Kohl is a London born filmmaker whose work marries raw intimacy with a focus on global youth culture and marginalized communities. Her interest in society’s fringes has seen her intimately document marginalized groups around the world, from punks in the Philippines to transgender communities in central India.
CreditsProduction PRETTYBIRD and UNSIGNED Joss Kohl, director; Juliette Larthe, exec producer; Jackson Forsythe, exec producer/producer; Eoin McLoughlin, DP; Andreja Viskovic, production manager; Simone Rocha, costume designer; Robbie Spencer, stylist; Celia Burton, hair & makeup; Jed Darlington-Roberts, additional photography; Ibrahim Serra Mohammed, drone pilot. Filmed at the Royal Opera House, London. Postproduction Stitch Charlie Von Rotberg, editor; Alex Gregory, colorist; Diego Basualdo, Kirsty Oldfield, post producer. Postproduction Serena Adrian Aragones, Flame colorist; Luis Huete, Esther Ceballos, Beatriz Descalzo, postproduction. Credit Design Jump Jirakaweekul. Creative Jacob Jonas Company Jacob Jonas, creative director. Music Isobel Waller Bridge, composer.
We Are Pi Rolls Out Trailer For Nike-Backed Feature On Athletes With Olympic and Paralympic Dreams
Amsterdam-based creative agency We Are Pi debuted the trailer for Crois Pas Qu’on Dort (Don’t Think We’re Sleeping in English), an inspiring feature-length story of three young French athletes in the lead-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics. The 90-minute French language film, which was developed and produced by We Are Pi with the support of Nike, will premiere in mid January 2025 followed by a release in theaters at the end of January. It follows three protagonists from Paris and its suburbs: Charles-Antoine, a runner with an intellectual disability who won Gold at the Tokyo Paralympics and is competing in this year’s Paralympics; and Leyna and Maysane, French twin sisters and heirs to their Laotian-Algerian family’s very own taekwondo dynasty who are coached by their father and dream of competing in taekwondo at Paris 2024. The athletes were followed by a film crew over the course of five years, recording how their stories, their lives and their sporting achievements unfold over time. The film combines the rawness and intimacy of their everyday lives with the audacity of their sporting dreams, with their stories culminating at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympics. Crois Pas Qu’on Dort was created with the aim of inviting a new generation of athletes in France into sport by inspiring them with the stories of our protagonists and the transformative power that sport had on their lives. The production began over seven years ago in 2017 with nearly two years of extensive casting sessions that involved viewing around 500 profiles of athletes. Two directors, Nick Walters and Lou Marillier, English and French, respectively, subsequently followed the selected young protagonists closely as they pursued their... Read More