Sumarsólstöður, 30min., France
Directed by Amélie Ravalec
In a world where art and reality collide, Miho’s vivid dreams reveal the cosmic force of the Architecture, uniting her with artists across the globe in a desperate battle to heal the universe.
https://www.circletimestudio.com/sumarsolstodur
Get to know the filmmaker:
1. What motivated you to make this film?
What motivated us to make Sumarsólstöður was the desire to tell a story that could hold together the contradictions of our time. On the one hand, we have always been inspired by the extraordinary things humanity has achieved, the way art, science and imagination can expand our perception of what is possible. On the other hand, we feel haunted by the way our intelligence, the very gift that makes us unique, is also pushing us toward collapse. This tension has been with us for years, a sense that our progress contains within it the seeds of our downfall. We wanted to create something that could speak to that paradox without being didactic, something that would take the form of an adventure, a dream, even a myth. For us, Sumarsólstöður is not only a pilot for a series, it is an experiment in rethinking how stories can be used as acts of repair. By drawing on art, memory and history, the film imagines that creativity itself might be the tool we need to confront our deepest crises.
The motivation comes from a place of both urgency and hope. Urgency because we are at a critical point, and hope because we still believe in the power of imagination to transform the way we see ourselves. Making this film was our way of exploring whether the stories we tell can help us retain the best of what we have created and avoid the worst.
2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?
We started in 2022. I kept having these visions in my head: two fencers fighting on a glacier, magical red-haired women, a mystical being on a volcanic black beach. Vincent and I started talking about it and said, let’s go to Iceland next month for a recce, which quickly turned into, well if we go, we may as well shoot something. That became a hectic five weeks of planning and a full shoot just six weeks after the first conversation.
From there we fleshed out the script and the following year went on to shoot in Japan, which was another week of wild adventure, filming a Yabusame mounted archer, falconers and their birds, a ninety-three-year-old sorcerer, our young heroine Miho, and a Kinbaku rope master. We also shot a Butoh dancer in an abandoned UFO house in Taiwan, another Butoh dancer performing with two Friesian stallions in London, and many more exciting characters.
Three years after that first shoot, the pilot was finished and launched in festivals in early 2025.
3. How would you describe your film in two words!?
Cosmic Memory, or Artistic Resistance
4. What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?
The biggest obstacle was making the film entirely independently, without any outside funding.
From the beginning we knew this would be a challenge, because we were shooting across different countries with a barebones budget, relying on sheer determination and the belief that the story needed to be told.
What made it possible was the support of our brilliant crew and cast, who gave their energy and creativity far beyond what the circumstances might have allowed. Working in this way demanded a lot from everyone, but it also gave the project its freedom. Looking back, we feel incredibly happy that we managed to achieve something of this scale independently, and we are deeply grateful to everyone who stood with us to make it happen
5. What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?
Watching the audience feedback video was both moving and exiting for us, because we could see that people had really entered into the world of the film. What struck us most was the level of attention to detail in their reactions, they weren’t just saying they enjoyed it, they were describing the atmosphere, the voices, the contrasts between art forms, the sense of mythology and dream logic. These are exactly the layers we wanted to create, so to hear them reflected back was incredibly rewarding.
We were also struck by how different viewers picked up on different aspects: one spoke about the multiple narrators as a way of building intensity, another about the way the dream world and portals connected to science fiction, another about art as a sacred duty to heal. That range of responses shows that the film resonates in different ways for different people, which is what we hoped for from the beginning. Most of all, it felt validating to see that the audience connected to the idea of art as both precious and powerful, as something that can shape how we imagine our future.
6. When did you realize that you wanted to make films?
I started making my first film at the age of sixteen. At the time I was deeply into underground techno, the harder, industrial sounds I had experienced in Berlin, and I wanted to document what I was discovering, to capture that intensity, that sense of stepping into another universe. I got a small camera and began filming gigs, interviewing people from the scene, piecing together what eventually became my first film, Paris/Berlin: 20 Years of Underground Techno, released when I was nineteen. I never stopped after that. I never consciously thought about becoming a filmmaker, it was simply about following what fascinated me.
I’ve always had an obsessive nature, and when something fascinates me I need to learn everything about it. From very early on I was drawn to artists who lived outside the ordinary: the underground, the avant-garde, counterculture, outsiders and freaks, anyone creating beyond convention. These hidden universes are always what I try to capture in my films.
7. What film have you seen the most in your life?
The first films that come to mind are The Machinist, Fight Club, and the short films of Terayama Shūji. Each of them stayed in my mind long after I first saw them. The Machinist and Fight Club are fascinating exploration of disturbed psychological states, with fractured identities and the darkness that lies beneath the surface of everyday life. Terayama’s short films, by contrast, opened a completely different door, into a world of colourful poetry, surrealism and provocation, where cinema becomes its own kind of dream language.
What other elements of the festival experience can we and other festivals implement to satisfy you and help you further your filmmaking career?
It’s amazing to get the film in front of different audiences who really connect with it. The audience feedback we received through the festival was a huge plus, because we can’t attend every screening ourselves but it means a lot to know how people are responding to the work. It helps us feel the film is alive in dialogue with viewers, not just existing in isolation.
We also really want to build a community around the series, to have more people know about it and carry it forward. Festivals play a big role in that, by giving the film visibility and creating encounters that wouldn’t happen otherwise. At the same time, we’re trying to find a home for it in terms of broadcasters and networks, so every opportunity to share the film more widely and connect with the right partners is incredibly helpful.
What is next for you? A new film?
What’s next for us is continuing to develop the series. We’re currently editing the second episode and have already started shooting the third. Each new chapter takes us into a different world, with both new and recurring characters and new layers to the mythology, so it feels like the project is constantly evolving as we make it. The pilot was only the beginning, the real adventure is unfolding now as we build the series piece by piece.
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