Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Warning: this film features rapidly flashing images that can be distressing to photosensitive viewers.
Ego loss is often characterised as an enlightened and contented state – the purview of such soul-searchers as deep meditators, psychonauts and ardent Buddhists. But as some people who struggle with anxiety understand all too well, the perpetual feeling of self-dissolution known as depersonalisation can be one of the nastiest manifestations of their disorder. The condition involves a harrowing feeling of detachment from oneself that can arise in an instant, sometimes last for years, and is often accompanied by a derealisation, in which the world appears strange and surreal.
In this short film, the French-Canadian filmmaker and set designer Jean-François Boisvenue explores how a lifetime of precarious mental health culminated in an excruciating period of depersonalisation in his early 20s. Using animated light displays projected onto his body to convey his sense of discord, Boisvenue recalls how depersonalisation swept over him, upending his sense of self and reality for months before he was able to heal.
Director: Jean-François Boisvenue
Website: La Distributrice
video
Personality
Why one man spent 15 years in ‘self-imposed’ island exile
7 minutes
video
Nature and landscape
Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece
6 minutes
video
Design and fashion
The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays
14 minutes
video
Physics
A song of ice, fire and jelly – exploring the physics and history of the trumpet
9 minutes
video
Architecture
Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China
16 minutes
video
Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
6 minutes
video
Animals and humans
An artist and ants collaborate on an exhibit of ‘tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings’
5 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor
16 minutes
video
Cities
The rise and fall of Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong’s infamous urban monolith
18 minutes