Short Film: Meeting Mirela

This is a 20-minute short film by Paul Seidenstecher and is on the arthouse side of the genre. Pretty much a mood-piece it plays with the genre staples and shows little in the way of vampirism though it definitely draws its inspiration from there.

housemates

Three housemates, Sabah (Tugba Tirpan), David (Paul Seidenstecher) and Jasmin (Silke Grygier) sit in their accommodation and Jasmin cannot believe that Mirela (Georgina Lupu-Florian) is gone. She feels her presence – and Sabah is frustrated by their attitude. She states that Mirela killed herself and leaves to go for a run. We remember at this point that suicides were, in folklore, in danger of becoming the restless dead.

with David

The three friends meet Mirela again that evening, each in their own way, and the film takes on a dreamlike surrealism. There is a theme of blood connecting the visitations – with David cutting his hand on broken glass and then, as he meets her, Mirela cutting his arm. There is blood dripped across the carpet in the house and stroking blood onto Jasmin’s skin by Mirela.

cross

As well as the bloodplay there is some interesting work with religious iconography as Mirela takes a silver cross and, holding it in her hand, turns it matt black – perhaps signifying a rebellion against religion and an overcoming of its strictures as she reaches from beyond the grave to her friends.

Jasmin and Mirela

However this is a tough one to describe as it maintains the dreamlike quality that, in some respects, owed a debt to the works of Jean Rollin. Perhaps better to watch and experience, unfortunately the homepage where you could watch this has gone since I wrote this article but it can still be found on Vimeo, thanks to Nancy Kilpatrick for spotting that. In the meantime the imdb page is here.