A fever dream re-imagining of "Jabberwocky," the famous rite of passage, a nonsense poem from Alice's Adventures through the Looking-Glass.

Interview with Director/Editor Helen Hideko

Congratulations! Why did you make your film?

When I was a child, one of the things my father would read to me was a nonsense poem from Alice in Wonderland called "Jabberwocky." It opens with the line: "Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe..." I liked the made-up words but was always sad that the mystical creature got slain.

Some twenty years later, I was at an artist residency in India where I woke up one morning to find this magnificent, haunting mist rising up out of the valley and slowly spreading through the jungle all around us. I thought to myself, "Well, if this isn't 'brillig' then I don't know what is!" So, I grabbed my DSLR camera, gaffer-taped it into a plastic bag (with some rice too) to protect it from the rain and humidity, and started filming all that surreal brillig-ness and more.

That's how it started--the place was suddenly so undeniably THAT world from my childhood fantasies--and the rest is No-Budget film history.

Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?

Three reasons:

1) If you don't have really bomb-ass dreams yourself but you don't necessarily want to have to take drugs to experience something unnervingly beautiful.

2) If you've ever seen something reflected in a puddle of water and wondered what would happen if you could dive deep into that world.

3) Because we're painfully aware that "watch a mesmerizing, non-Disney, fever-dream version of that famous Wonderland poem that's infused with totally badass, mystical soundscapes" is a really tough one to fulfil on your Bucket List, so... tadaaa.

How do personal and universal themes work in your film?

Our film depicts a sort of mythical "rite of passage," which makes it inherently universal due to its themes of death and monster-slaying, but at the same time personal due to the layers of unique sounds and images that we've clothed the original storyline with.

We've also "mirrored" or reversed our dialogue, which is not only thematically in line with Alice's Wonderland poem from the mirror-world, but the extra unrecognizable words in the film also amplify the universality of the source material, which abounds in nonsense words that invite you to come to explore what lies in the psyche beyond the constraints of language.

How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?

The most fun evolution is the process of what we like to call a "conversational" or "double helix" picture/sound edit. We don't use the classic approach of a picture lock followed by sound design. Instead, we'll have editing sessions at my sound designer's studio where I'll export a short sequence of images that feels like it has a flow for me. I'll then give it to Bernhard, who has the freedom to play around with sound concepts and (most importantly) the freedom to ask for immediate changes to the image edit to better compliment a particular sound. We then keep going back and forth, which allows picture and sound to evolve organically and in conversation with one another, and this process works beautifully for the kind of surreal story-telling we like to do.

What type of feedback have you received so far?

For people who aren't familiar with the Jabberwocky poem, it's based on, the most common response is emotional excitement paired with: "I HONESTLY don't know WHAT that was, but it was really amazing!"

In the original book, Lewis Carroll describes how Alice herself didn't even understand the poem as she notes to herself, "somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate." So, I'd say our end game is still totally on point.

Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?

We're always surprised by how differently people interpret what happens in the film, which is really great when we feel like we're providing maximum inspiration that yields such a huge variety of interesting results.

What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?

The film is a mind-opening trip and we'd just love for as many people as possible to have the experience of seeing, and especially hearing the dreamscapes that we've created!

Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?

We'd appreciate the attention of film festival directors, journalists, and distributors to help spread the word about our little green bird.

What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?

If you'll hold my beer for a second: Bernhard and I feel like we live in an age where the illusion of the "freedom of choice" is so strong in a multitude of ways--like how you seem to be able to "customize" and tailor your life constantly to your personal liking, but actually stuff like "presets" and "filters" for example end up limiting your crap to being just like everybody else's crap and we're constantly losing imagination, freedom, individuality, and thereby a whole lot of beauty.

There's (still) no App for generating a (fever)dream sequence that will jump start and flex the hell out of your imagination, so it comes down to us simply wanting to improve your spiritual health--kind of like yoga.

What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?

A natural instinct is to "slay" or repress our personal demons out of sheer fear, but do we stand to lose something in doing so or how does it affect the landscape of our inner world?

What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?

We're considering developing either a Jabberwocky trilogy or modern myth trilogy to do the next levels of exploring these rites of passage dream-themes!

Interview: April 2019

We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela

Ykcowrebbaj

A fever dream re-imagining of "Jabberwocky," the famous rite of passage, a nonsense poem from Alice's Adventures through the Looking-Glass.

Length: 8:30

Director: Helen Hideko

Producer: Steven Swirko

Writer: Helen Hideko

About the writer, director and producer:

HELEN HIDEKO was born in Hawaii, studied English literature in Canada, and loves re-imagining classics with her sound specialist counterpart, Bernhard Zorzi in Vienna, Austria.

STEVEN SWIRKO is the man with the plan who is currently off working with renowned Austrian Director, Ulrich Seidl, but like Helen Hideko he also has roots in the US yet is an imported talent in Vienna where the two met years ago during their studies at the Vienna Film Academy.

Key cast: Kumaresan (The boy/The Jabberwock), Bharati Kapadia (The woman)

Looking for: journalists, film festival directors, distributors

Facebook: Ykcowrebbaj

Hashtags used: #FollowTheLittleGreenBird #FilmakademieWien

Other: IMDb

Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? FLORIDA FILM FESTIVAL / Orlando, Florida - April 20 @9:45pm ; VIENNA INDEPENDENT SHORTS / Vienna, Austria (EU) - May 28-June2