Tunnels

Synopsis: Rosie suffers from an undiagnosed case of Papilledema - a condition in which increased pressure around the brain causes visual blackouts and affects a person’s judgment. Rosie is a divorced mother raising her 3-year-old son on her own. Her ex-partner is suspicious that Rosie is not well and repeatedly checks in on her. When Rosie's neighbours also become suspicious about her behaviour, they report it to her ex-partner who then threatens to take their son away. With her connection to her son now in jeopardy, Rosie gets in her car and escapes with the child.

Paul Bloomfield is a contemporary artist and filmmaker. He was born in Luton, England graduating with a Masters in Fine Art from Newcastle University. Paul started as an animator and designer gaining attention for his unique graphic style which draws on themes of isolation, language and activism. He later moved into live-action working with choreographers to produce a series of dance and music videos before making his debut drama Levers (2018). Of his take on New Order's Everything's Gone Green Promonews said 'an avant-garde visual [..] where the line between nature and artificiality, contrast'. Vimeo Staff Picks for Squeezie (2015), led to a video collaboration with Max Cooper for his well regarded live sets. Paul works as an esteemed Art Director at The Mill, lending his perceptive eye to offer alternative and nuanced approaches to visually driven advertising.

Director Statement

The film explores themes of blindness with Rosie, who struggles to confront a serious condition affecting her sight and Jerry, who's concern for their child and his strained relationship with her makes him just as blind. Within both are views of the world that are shaped by a constant slippage of sight. This unsettling view is at the heart of the film, where the camera is more than just an unreliable narrator but is the willing veil shaped by the imagined belief of our own thoughts. A technological gaze that is itself implicated in an objective blindness. Where the Optician can only provide an expertise, powerless to intervene like the audience sitting in the blackened silence.