Breaking a long slumber, a mysterious rope leads a soul through a decaying world as he attempts to connect with another.

Directed by Maya Marzuki Peters, Anahita von Andrian-Werburg

Cast: Sean Pfeiffer, Anya Susan

Director Statement
Convergence grapples with fear, loss, and ultimately, connection, but the film is also deeply personal to our relationship. We had collaborated creatively before, but when we decided to co-direct this project, we were actually coming out of this awkward period of distance. Neither of us could understand why our friendship had fizzled out. We decided to reconnect and slowly started to piece it all together, together.

And so we began this process of equal exchange, of contributing, disputing, and building, and this beautiful thing happened! We realized that our experience of ambiguous loss and hurt is a universal feeling. Much like a home, even after it falls into a period of neglect and abandonment, there could be a strong foundation to rebuild upon again. The question is one of time and willingness.

The more we rebuilt our relationship, the more convergence itself was built. It was a completely new experience of artistic method. We leant away from a traditional literal narrative and more towards an experimental style of filmmaking using allegorical expression. Our use of abandoned locations, dystopian art design, purposeful VFX, fluid camera movements, and an emphasis on contemporary movement and expression as a form of communication allowed for a fluid and inclusive visual language.

Throughout production, we were fortunate enough to work with a fantastic ensemble of incredibly talented creatives to contribute to this auteur method of “empathy art.” We were able to facilitate an intimate atmosphere with a very small crew: just the two of us, our highly intuitive gimbal extraordinaire of a cinematographer Tony, and our eclectic dystopian costume designer (& rope wrangler) Sia. Our two incredible contemporary dancers, Sean and Anya, were able to take our direction and completely transform the emotional progression through their application of dance improvisation. In post, we worked for months with soulful and hard-working musicians; Pius, Erika, and Irlaith, to create a lyrical score based off of a poem we wrote.

Everything about Convergence was about coming together and solving problems collaboratively, even in making it. Ultimately, this is a story of hope, and the beautiful power of what humans can do when they unite.