Interview: Kristina Buožytė Co-Director of "Vanishing Waves" (Aurora) / Lithuania 2012

Sara Ishaq: The film visually illustrates the complexities of the human psyche where love, passion and human connections are concerned. What inspired you to investigate this subject through a science fiction form?

Kristina Buožytė: The idea was not to simply make a sci-fi film, but rather to explore intangible areas of human relationships and what it is like to feel passion and desire in a way that would be visually descriptive. I think science fiction is really a great medium to explore such concepts, because we can delve deeper into the surreal to explore it further. In relationships, there is a lot of hiding and people are not always open. When they are open, it is a very raw experience. In the mental-sphere, there is no place to hide. Also, in modern society, technology is developing rapidly and people are connecting with each intimately over large distances and, little by little, close physical proximity is no longer needed to have deep connections and relationships with others. I thought these concepts would be interesting to explore as sci-fi.

SI: As the film touches on Cognitive functions and Neuroscience, how did you cover all the fundamental technical and scientific bases?

KB: Most of it came from our imagination, although the internet is also a great resource. For confirmation, we communicated with doctors, neurologists and scientists in France, Lithuania and Ireland. We went to hospitals to see patients in comas to try to learn about the different levels of a coma, and studied how sensory development takes place in a new-born child. We later began to transform the data collected into stories.

SI: What was your process of making the experiences of the two ‘worlds’ of reality and fantasy equally plausible?

Every fantasy has a basis in reality. There is truly a thin line between reality and fantasy. Nobody really knows what happens in the mind of a person while they’re in a coma, and sub-consciousness is still a big enigma for everybody. As a result, we could be quite imaginative. The characters had to derive their acting from real-life experiences. They had very strong connections to their roles and every action came very naturally. We had long rehearsals to make it intimately real, especially with the character Aurora who is emotionally completely exposed in the film.

By Sara Ishaq