Winter Song
2023 · 14m · UK
Directed by Kate Graham
A sleep-deprived film composer and new mother retreats to a remote Yorkshire house to finish a score, but as her music distorts and ghostly figures appear, she begins to fear she is losing her mind.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Graham refuses to explain the horror — she just builds the atmosphere until the walls between reality and breakdown dissolve, which is the only honest way to make a film about postnatal psychosis.
Postnatal-composer-in-Yorkshire as waking-dream horror — Babadook and Hereditary are tall orders but the conceit (distorting score as objective correlative) is precise. Cautious yes.
Postnatal dissociation as waking-dream rather than narrative — Graham's structural choice is exactly the right one for the subject, and the Babadook / Repulsion reference points are seriously chosen. New-mother-composer-with-distorting-score is a usefully claustrophobic premise.
Festivals
- Seville Indie Film Festival 2023, Best Short Film