Private Project

Five Moments

'Five Moments' is an experimental music short film drama about the loss of a loved one, featuring live-on-set recorded art songs from romantic to modern.
The film explores grief by bringing five distinctive moments in a woman’s journey to life as she tries to cope with losing her partner. We follow Joan as she remembers, faces her feelings of emptiness and isolation and confronts her anger and pain - until she finally breaks free, if not from her grief, then at least from being stuck in what is no more.

  • Ted Ganger
    Producer
  • Jasmine Embrechts
    Producer
  • Madil Hardis
    Producer
  • Madil Hardis
    Director
  • Roseanna Frascona
    Key Cast
  • Magdalena Maria Herfurtner
    Key Cast
  • Ted Ganger
    Music
  • Robert Schumann
    Music
  • Franz Schubert
    Music
  • Mathias Falcone
    Cinematography
  • George Davies
    Sound
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Music Video, Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Music, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    19 minutes 13 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 26, 2022
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English, German
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Madil Hardis

Magdalena Herfurtner is a German filmmaker, producer and musician, resident in London. She studied Vocal Performance at University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich and Screenwriting at Central Film School London.

Magdalena co-produced the multi-award-winning short film 'The Power of One Coin' (2018), line-produced Sergei Alexander's feature debut 'Your Eyes on Me' (which won Best LGBT Feature at LIFF 2020), and has written and produced a variety of experimental short films and music videos, among them 'Trinette' (2019), 'Sacrifice' (2020) and 'Five Moments' (2022).

With her music project Madil Hardis, Magdalena has released over 30 singles and EPs over the last few years. She appeared as a guest singer on Ashbury Heights' hit single 'Wild Eyes' and her songs and collaborations have to date accumulated 1.4 million streams on Spotify. Her song 'Summers Lost' is featured diegetically in the coming-of-age drama 'Giantland'.

Magdalena has extensive experience in art crowdfunding, having raised almost 50k for various film projects and having consulted on over 50 crowdfunding campaigns for the fundraising platform Greenlit. She also regularly co-hosts film events and panel discussions with Cine Circle Events London. In 2021, she was a keynote speaker for Greenlit at the Raindance Film Festival.

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Director Statement

When we lose a loved one, the impact of such an event - the shock, the pain, the sorrow - can feel unbearable.

From my own personal experience, I know that time starts to move at a different pace. Short moments become seemingly endless, long stretches of time merge together or break away.

And it’s often the little things that set us off, the mundane moments that suddenly trigger our sorrow, re-igniting memories we'd thought were buried and forgotten.

'Five Moments' explores this grief by bringing five distinctive moments in a woman’s journey to life, as she tries to cope with losing her partner. We follow Joan as she remembers, faces her feelings of emptiness and isolation and confronts her anger and pain - until she finally breaks free, if not from her grief, then at least from being stuck in what is no more.

This project merges film, classical and contemporary music elements. Our goal - beyond our artistic endeavours and aspirations - is therefore to inspire film lovers to discover the world of classical music, and music lovers to explore the universe of experimental filmmaking. The best of both worlds creates an intense audio-visual experience that will hopefully spark or rekindle the raw and intuitive curiosity in our audience.

The themes in this film are topics very close to my heart. 'Five Moments' has been created and shot during the pandemic - grief and loss have been constant companions for many people during this time. The feeling of being isolated, deserted, alone - we all can empathize with these states of mind, now more than ever. We hope this film will bring hope and a sense of companionship to people who have had similar experiences, that it can make them feel both understood and comforted as they follow our main character’s journey.

NOTE ON SUBTITLES:
We intentionally decided against subtitles for this film. Despite the fact that four out of the five songs featured in the film are in German, these songs are not to be seen as the lead character's monologue but rather as an expression of their emotional state. Therefore, the individual words matter less than the overall feeling conveyed by the music and images, and we found subtitles to be distracting rather than contributing to the experience. You can find the lyrics and their translation in the attached PDF.