Picturing Wonderland

Filmmaker Biography: Alfie Elms is an award winning London based writer and director. His previous films include the festival selected short films: The Sight of Voices, West of the Lakes and SNCFT. Alfie has directed music videos for a number of contemporary artists including Sunken, Natty Wylah and Kamau Kuru and was a previous winner of the Daunt Books Young Persons Short Story Competition for his short story, On The Edge. The short documentary film Picturing Wonderland played at a number of key festivals around the UK and abroad, including Aesthetica Film Festival and Leeds International Festival, while winning top awards at seven festivals, including the KINO London Short Film Festival, the Novella Film Festival and the Screen Power Film Festival. Alfie recently completed his newest short narrative film, Apus Apus (aka five meals and a swift) starring Naomi Yang and Lucy Sheen. This film forms part of a triptych of shorts entitled III: Turritopsis Dohrnii, Apus Apus and Grylloidea.

Film Genesis: Picturing Wonderland reflects a collaboration between the filmmakers and Maud Rowell. Following a series of conversations, we collectively devised a visual language to partner the monologue provided by Maud, a wonderfully written and powerful piece of prose detailing her experience with blindness, colour and photography. Narrated by Maud herself, the film was shot on 16mm colour film by cinematographer Finn Boxer, incorporates hand crafted analogue animation techniques by Ana Projects, experimental lighting design by Satu Streatfield and a vivid original score by Patrick Fitzgerald.