PROMISE OF FALLEN TIME
JURY SPECIAL MENTION 2010, Il Coreografo Elettronico, MADRE Museum, Naples
"Rocamora maintains her fine taste for texture, revealing life in each and every one of her still-lives. Here too we are to feel the accent offered by human presence in an empty space, as well as a freedom for interpretation which allows the story
to capriciously intertwine in its viewer's memory"
Ferrán Mateo, La Vanguardia, Spain
A post-apocalypse meditation on faith, memory and extinction. There's been a disaster. A woman journeys to survive, a man awaits death. Promise of Fallen Time considers our dread to lose what we are most attached to – a loved one, ourselves.
“A story of deep emotion and nostalgia between two beings... Unflinchingly delivered... truly unbearable to the heart.”
Mark Cosgrove
Cinema Curator
Watershed, Bristol
“We are little accustomed to witnessing the presence of mature performers in contemporary work. We are even less used to a narrative and expression conveyed through body and movement. Authored by Isabel Rocamora this work is a mature and brave meditation on death, on the assuredness of a forthcoming disappearance, on our yearning for life and for those who have shared it with us. Rocamora positions her characters in an old decadent house and yet, like the bodies of her protagonists, the place here carries a beauty and a dignity which is deeply touching. It is an allegorical space for the final meeting between old friends or lovers, played with an impressive delicacy by Anna Mittèl and Enric Majó, who offer us through gestures and caresses a tender - if inevitably harsh - approximation to death.”
Nuria Font
TV3 Commissioner
"Isabel Rocamora’s Promise of Fallen Time is a focused meditation on the themes of twilight, degeneration and the profound tension between companionship and the loneliness of death. The gestures these bodies articulate are exhausted and lost, loitering along strange trajectories and dancing around people and things. The objects and images bring aesthetic weight and depth to the themes (the unmade bed, the urn) and the partnering of body and architecture creates a poignancy around the notion of 'material remains'; the 'past grandeur' of the naked man and the framing of his body in the architectural context, the powerful contrast and almost arrogant vitality of the dog and child, the poetics of the fading city lights, the filmic attention to material - hair, fabric, decaying walls... A truly beautiful work."
Erin Brannigan
Director of Reeldance
University of New South Wales
Co-commissioner
Film stills of Promise of Fallen Time.
In remembrance of commissioner Nuria Font, whose caring and unrelenting support of artists and the production and distribution of their work leaves us a significant legacy.
Images: production stills of Promise of Fallen Time by Mari Luz Vidal. © 2009.
Written and directed by: Isabel Rocamora • Featuring: Anna Mittel, Enric Majó, Eric Mateos • Cinematography: Nic Knowland BSC • Film editor: Isabel Rocamora • Sound design and composition: Jem Noble • Additional sound design: Paul Cowgill • Sound recordists: Eva Valiño, Romina Sánchez • Art direction: Paula de la Fuente • Costume design: Clara Guarro • 1st Assistant Director: Arnau Montanyès • Commissioned by: TV3, NU2s, Reeldance Australia • Funded by: Arts Council England, Generalitat de Catalunya • Supported by: Barcelona Film Commission, Films at 59 Post-production • Assistant Producer: Antonia Montaner • Produced by: Isabel Rocamora for the Isabel Rocamora Studio. Year of production: 2009.