Private Project

Phaesporia

Kali travels into the forest to join a group of insurgents who live there. She meets many people along her journey, one of which is Artemis who saves her life and offers to travel with her. They find and join the insurgents, however after a political bombing, Kali and Artemis struggle to return to the sanctuary while Kali decides which path she wants to take with her life.

  • Carman Spoto
    Director
    Antenna, Hylo, Going Under
  • Carman Spoto
    Writer
    Antenna, Hylo, Going Under
  • Quinn Dougherty
    Producer
    Antenna, Hylo
  • Arazel Newman
    Key Cast
  • Annie Mok
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Drama, science-fiction, fantasy, political
  • Runtime:
    2 hours 1 minute 58 seconds
  • Production Budget:
    25,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital 4k
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1:1.618
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Carman Spoto

Carman Spoto is a filmmaker from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her previous features include Hylo and Going Under. Her major short films are Antenna and Beaux. She owns and operates Swine Films which is based in Philadelphia.

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Director Statement

Phaesporia is a film of cycles and repetition. We are trapped on a plateau of patterns, a temporal cycle, a cycle that needs to be broken in order for progress to occur. Phaesporia is both an experiment and a study in the destruction of these unnatural cycles in which we remain stuck. It is a means of liberation from the plateaus of our cultures into a truly progressive world free of oppression. Phaesporia is the transference from cycle to an ever-extending spiral.

This cycle has extended in infinite directions over the world for countless millennia. I expand this universality of the cycle through the imagery and narratives of historical cultures. Thus the film intersects a myriad of mythologies, including those of the Judeo-Christian, Greek, Hindu, Buddhist, and more. I strive to equate these mythologies to the mythology of the warriors of our time and elevate modern conflicts to an equal plane in history.

Cinematic inspiration bears heavily from the works of Béla Tarr and Andrei Tarkovsky, but also from other films such as The Temptation of St. Tony, Marketa Lazarova, Princess Mononoke, and Robert Kramer’s Ice.
Carman Spoto, Cinematographer