PROJECT
center of the earth
Over the course of a surreal and nightmarish subterranean descent, heiresses of an industrial empire chase a consuming obsession that will drag them beyond the threshold of madness and eventually their very humanity.
Inspired by Jules Verne’s 1864 novel Voyage au Centre de la Terre, the film To the Center of the Earth adapts the story’s premise as a parable for the malignant dimensions of the Industrial Revolution and its self-destructive ideologies. Envisioning the journey as a one-way-ticket, the Conrad-esque rendition remains a tale of otherworldly exploration, but pursues the motives for such an attempt as the true frontier.
Originating as backstory for a series of commissioned artworks (Sequence Portrait, Costume Triptych and Chikyū Hakken), the narrative was subsequently expanded into an outline for a feature-length film. To demonstrate the project’s visual direction and appeal as either a live-action or animated movie, a series of 40 style frames were produced exploring the unique genre blend of classical Hollywood noir and sci-fi horror. Drawing influence from the films of Francis Ford Coppola, David Lynch, and Andrei Tarkovsky, To the Center of the Earth proposes an acerbic meditation on the illusion of power and the dilemma of psychopathy haunting its most fervent pursuits.
The project is currently in development.
Runtime: 90 minutes Format: 35mm, Animated
design & production
