Olivia & the Clouds

When love is lost, through a breakup or passing, all we have left are memories and the stories we tell ourselves. In this animated visual treat, debut feature director, Tomás Pichardo Espaillant, offers a compelling perspective on how we recount experiences close to our hearts.

If you could deconstruct love and touch a moment of its essence, what would that look and feel like? In his experimental debut feature, Tomás Pichardo Espaillant uses a collage of stop motion animation, graphic sketching and Claymation over a rich soundscape that complicates how we memorialise and remember intimacy. An ode to love told through time, space and the unreliable source of memory.

Olivia & the Clouds follows the love story of two couples. As each person recounts the nature of the relationship it becomes evident that our memories are intertwined with the stories we tell ourselves. How two people can have divergent experiences about the same relationship. Beyond the narratives that anchor this film is the filmmaker’s exquisite visual language. Live action landscapes of the Dominican Republic under graphic outlines, the anthropomorphism of a pot plant that represents a woman’s yearning for love and a man’s desires unearthed through his interactions with the plant, collapsed timelines of past and present in 2D. Olivia & the Clouds is a visual and sonic tale of love, loss and memory.

– Lesedi Oluko Moche

Trailer

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