M O R T A L S

In Time and Free Will, French philosopher Henri Bergson posited that our inner experience of time, unlike the mechanistic view that perceives time as a succession of separate, spatial constructs, is durée - a ceaseless flow of consciousness that intertwines the past, present, and future. This, too, is the essence of life.

MORTALS portrays the death of individual mortal beings as a temporary interruption—rather than a terminal cessation, as we typically understand it—in the greater stream of collective durée. There are 8 individual mortal beings, yet also 8 fragments of memory of one single Immortal. In this film, I suggest the possibility of a larger, timeless reality.

The goldfish renowning for its 7-second memory breaks free from glass goblets and swims into the boundless river. Once again, mortal beings break through the shackles of mechanistic time to achieve immortality in durée.

Death is just a loss of memory.