How has it been working within a quarry in Malta about such an interesting topic and with such a diverse team (Poland, France, US)?

When I was invited to create a film for this project, I immediately thought of centering the Maltese quarry as a film location. My visual work has always been about landscapes, making them the main subjects. Growing up in Malta gave me a sensitivity to explore and frame the rocky landscapes in such a way that permits me to explore themes centered around timelessness, wilderness and the apocalypse. 

My request for a 'carte blanche' to create this film was granted and I immediately started to imagine a new ritual surrounding this structure. The backdrop of the quarry provided a neutrality akin to a desert landscape, or a theatre that would ensure that the performers and the structure would be visually unadulterated, and that everything would be concentrated on the ritual. I have been personally researching the history of the bekkajja/newwieħa and thought it would be an excellent chance to explore this theme in this film.

Immediately after thinking of the quarry, I knew I wanted to have Polish cinematographer Monika Kotecka on board as the Director of Photography for this film. Monika and I had previously worked together on my film 'Perpetual Child' (2020). She has an uplifting poetic sensitivity and I love the synergy that our director- D.O.P relationship brings to our visual projects. Monika suggested Mateusz Romaszkan, a seasoned editor (notably worked on Oscar-nominated short 'Rabbit a la Berlin') to come on board. Our small team was complete with camera assistant Mathieu Pinet from Paris.

I am very happy with the resulting dynamic, creative and professional energy that, alongside the powerful performances by Charlotte Grech, Martina Goergina, Zoe Camilleri and Jesmark Scicluna, helped us bring stunning scenes to life.

Spending three days shooting in the quarry also made me appreciate this rare vast space that we would not otherwise find in Malta, except for the surrounding seascape. 

What is your ultimate goal with the narrative you are crafting for this film and what intentions do you have for audiences?

The introduction of cremation to Malta will inevitably reshape our relationship with mourning our departed and also with how we physically deal with remnants and monuments, monuments to the life of the departed and to the love that remains. This film is an exploration of that and it imagines a new mourning ritual from the everlasting ritual archetypes (fires, processions, offerings) that bring destruction and resurrection to light. 

There are always many layers within a visually narrative project. This is inevitable thanks to interlacing themes and also serendipitous moments on set which I welcome with open arms. 

I consider a work of art successful when the audience approaches it with an open mind in order to add their own interpretation to it as a viewer, further enriching the work itself.

What does URNA mean to you personally as a filmmaker and artist and how have you funneled this into the work made this week?

Landscape and ritual are recurring themes in my work, with my own life for that matter. For me, a body within a landscape, no matter how many times it is explored over and over again, presents new sentiments and existential themes that help us all interpret our own aliveness and being in this space. 

The greatest joy that comes with filmmaking is the playful creativity that comes with the congregation of the cast and crew in a space to dream and imagine together, all inevitably contributing with their own personal narrative and complexity. The result, even objectively, varies from the childlike, to the chaotic, to the absurd. Such an example is having the stunning structure installed in the centre of the quarry and having performers in timeless costumes interact with it, all the while having a quarry worker in a caterpillar digging through the rock right next to our set, observing us and even offering their own help, visibly curious. All to the soundtrack of the song of the blue rock thrush (merill) that inhabits the quarry. I am always grateful that my creative endeavours take me to such new situations otherwise impossible to experience.

Like funeral rituals, the Urna ritual, albeit stemming from loss and death, centers life and the sensuality that comes with being alive, which, personally, is the reason why I create what I create, always as a testament to my own life, and to life itself. 

REFERENCES

Filmmaker, singer-songwriter and performer. Music available on all platforms (Spotify, Bandcamp)

Previous film collaborated with Monika Kotecka (the cinematographer for URNA film: Perpetual Child)

Some information about the Herzog opportunity:

I was selected among 25 film directors from around the world to partake in a 10 day workshop guided by Werner Herzog and special guest Peter Zeitlinger (his cinematographer for his last 25 films) who accompanied and mentored me as I created a short film from scratch (writing, casting, directing, shooting, editing, composing) in 10 days directly inspired from the theme "After the Fire" within the devastated volcanic landscape of La Palma Island. The resulting short film is called 'Song of the living rocks' that will start its festival journey and will premiere at the "The Poetic Lens" screening at the Millenium Film Workshop in Brooklyn, New York on the 18th of January 2025.