OUR SHADOWS AT NOON

Our Shadows at Noon
Experimental Film, Written, Directed, and Soundscaped by Lucia Dwyer

Our Shadows at Noon is a dialogue-free experimental film exploring themes of isolation, survival, and colonial oppression through an innovative fusion of sound and movement. Set on the haunting terrain of Spike Island, a now attraction that was a 19th-century prison under British colonial rule. The film reconstructs the psychological landscape of its inmates using historical audio, abstract choreography, and poetic visuals.

Developed in collaboration with actors Sorcha Crowley and Dorothee Karekezi, and shot by cinematographer Adam Barry Murphy, the film draws from Spike Island’s violent past. Field recordings from the site are reworked into an immersive soundscape that does more than reflect place, it tells the story. Manipulated Foley become narrative instruments, crafting an acoustic world of confinement, fear, and resistance.

Movement within the film is partially choreographed and partially improvised, emerging from visual and conceptual practices such as Tomaso Binga’s word alphabet. Subtle gestures, glances, and spatial tension between bodies convey the prisoners' inner lives. Echoes of Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates are visible in the film’s structural and visual approach, where symbolic composition replaces linear storytelling.

The absence of dialogue intensifies the role of non-verbal communication. The performers embody a shared yet fragmented sense of community through synchronized gestures and opposing trajectories, suggesting both solidarity and betrayal under pressure. Throughout, sound subverts image.

The result is a sensory excavation of historical trauma, a meditation on how systems of control fracture identity and community. Through movement, sound, and image, Our Shadows at Noon invites the viewer to reflect on survival as a bodily and sonic act.