COSMOS OBSCURA

Duration 00:04:00
Directors: Katherine Balsley and Irina Escalante Chernova
Producers: Katherine Balsley and Irina Escalante Chernova

Cosmos Obscura is a 2019 experimental short film directed, edited and produced by Kate Balsley. It’s a very atmospheric film.

The film is very experimental and abstract, somewhat similar to abstract art. It’s thus not for everyone, but it does manage to leave an artistic, positively weird impression owing to its strong mood very well accomplished due to great score and imagery.

The film actually uses photographs that were taken from the famous spacecraft Voyager II, and that gives the imagery more meaning and it grounds it in reality and gives it more validity. However, it becomes more than a documentary as it twists those images into a very abstract form.

The planets, the stars and the moons here are all very twisted, changed and rearranged in their form which led to weird shapes and very unusual formations that definitely make the film highly artistic and abstract.

Even better than the imagery is the score which is a combination of electronic score and sounds, especially background noises taken directly from natural surroundings. The result is a picture that is very moody, immensely strange and even eerie and mysterious in its feel and tone.

The mixture of odd imagery and that very memorable, eerie score led to a very strange, but certainly memorable experiment that paid off in terms of its cinematic quality and audio-visuals. The film played at 2019 Atlanta Film Festival, and in particular Kate Balsley needs to be commended for her triple work here as she produced, directed and even edited the whole film which is very well structured and edited in its four brisk, but memorable minutes.

Cosmos Obscura is, at the end of the day, an abstract experiment that is to be admired for its audio-visuals in particular. It’s a very strange, different film in its approach and execution, and it’s thus perfect for abstract form enthusiasts. The mixture of odd imagery and that very memorable, eerie score led to a very strange, but certainly memorable experiment that paid off in terms of its cinematic quality and audio-
visuals. The film played at 2019 Atlanta Film Festival, and in particular Kate Balsley needs to be commended for her triple work here as she produced, directed and even edited the whole film which is very well structured and edited in its four brisk, but memorable minutes.

Cosmos Obscura is, at the end of the day, an abstract experiment that is to be admired for its audio-visuals in particular. It’s a very strange, different film in its approach and execution, and it’s thus perfect for abstract form enthusiasts.