CONFINEMENT (2023)

10 minutes 2 seconds, HD video with sound

Confinement (2023) is a short film conceived by the artist and performance duo Valentina Ceschi and Kate Lane, written and directed by Vicki Thornton. It is set in the watery landscape of Walthamstow Wetlands, London. It presents a surreal, dystopian, alternate world of imagined maternal encounters, serving as a testament to the isolated experience of motherhood and birth during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.

Through a series of tableaux, fantastical costumed figures interact with one another in this abandoned urban wilderness, enacting a mysterious mythology through acts of ritual and service. The film explores narratives and ideas around confinement, restriction, grief, healing and hope. An original score by opera singer, songwriter and composer Helen Epega accompanies the film.

The short film is an ‘echo’ of a site-specific performance at the Wetlands in the summer of 2022, which developed through a series of community workshops with local mothers and carers.

Director: Vicki Thornton 

Concept/ Direction/ Design: Valentina Ceschi & Kate Lane 

Director of Photography: Jonathan Nicol 

Editor: Michael Ho 

Composer: Helen Epega 

Choreography: Masumi Saito 

Performers: Valentina Ceschi, Kate Lane And and Masumi Saito

Producer: Susannah Bramwell 

1st Assistant Director: Rimma Mareychenko 

Production Manager: Lizzie Debonnaire 

Sound Recordist: Guy Fixsen 

Camera Assistant: Nina Gubatan 

Design Assistant: Sonia Odedra 

With the support of Arts Council England, London Wildlife Trust, Waltham Forest Women’s Network, 101 Outdoor Arts, Motherly Love, and The Maternal Journal.