Private Project

Opium Dream

A Dionysian bacchanal that conjoins the immersive pleasures of the body with the physical textures of the vegetal, fruit and floral worlds. São Paulo-based Fabio da Motta’s Shibari ropework awakens the dancers to their bodies’ sensuous powers. Once we understand the ways we are bound, we are free to enjoy the cornucopia of the world.

  • Nishchaya Gera
    Director
    Scar Tissue (2017), Look Baba I'm Happy (2019)
  • Nishchaya Gera
    Writer
  • Martijn Krediet
    Producer
  • Nishchaya Gera
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Experimental, Queer, Erotic, Bondage, Kink, Dance, LGBTQ+
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes 53 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 31, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    12,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, Belgium, Netherlands
  • Country of Filming:
    Belgium
  • Language:
    Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • MUNA Film Distribution
    Distributor
Director Biography - Nishchaya Gera

Nishchaya Gera is a director and screenwriter currently based in Brussels. His short films have screened in over 100 film festivals worldwide and have won several awards. His first short, 'Scar Tissue', was selected as a finalist for the Iris Prize. Displacement, queerness and the sexual politics of our times are central themes in his work. He is currently working on his first feature project 'The Taj Motel', which was selected for Torino Film Labs. Nish was born in India and has lived in Udaipur, New Delhi, Mumbai, New York City, Berlin and London.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

‘He still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast.’ Like Coleridge in his reflections on Kubla Khan and the interruption of the world into the opium dream of his poetic vision, the film asks: What is pleasure?

Too often we accept the fever dream of work and its meaningless instrumental goals over the dreams we have of pleasure and immersion in our bodies’ sensuous powers. To the meditative accompaniment of The Song of Songs, one of the most ancient poems about the divinity of intimacy with the natural world and physical love, the film is an exploration of this idea: the more we consciously understand how others may want to bind us, the freer we become. And could it be that once we understand the way we are bound, the more we are able to enjoy the bacchanal of our senses and the cornucopia of the world?