Bird & Carrot is to release online The Mother, a short film featuring moments from Arthur Pita’s ballet of the same name starring Natalia Osipova and Jonathan Goddard, which was performed at the Southbank Centre in June 2019, directed by French-Colombian director Emmanuel G Cuesta.
Pita said, “during the first stages of the creation process for The Mother, we were working at Stone Nest, the former Welsh Chapel on Shaftesbury Avenue; the chapel’s mood and architecture felt immediately very inspiring. Then our producer Alexandrina Markvo thought we should create a short film so we could take advantage of the atmospheric space we were in.
“Director Emmanuel Cuesta and cinematographer Boris Laroche came over from Paris and we literally had one day to shoot. We had a plan, but Cuesta also went with our impulses as we bounced ideas off each other. Designer Yann Seabra dressed the space and brought the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale aspect of the piece to life. Even though it was early stages of the creation, Natalia and Jonathan went deeper into the instincts of their characters which certainly informed the final stage production.”
Bird & Carrot producer Alexandrina Markvo added, “The Mother is a dark ride into the world of early motherhood. It is a unique combination of dance and narrative based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale; it explores the relationship between a new parent and the powerful love that drives a journey to protect a child. It was a very personal experience for me—the same moment we started the project I found out that I was pregnant with my son Lev Aaron. I think this is a brilliant opportunity for an audience to see Arthur’s unique vision in storytelling and to see Natalia and Jonathan exploring every inch of their dramatic talents.”
Music is by Lena Kaufman, Asya Sorshneva and Denis Grotsky.