All my Scars Vanish in the Wind

Among intrusive and sought-after memories, a woman hears a disconcerting call from the depths of her being: a cryptic cry for help, becoming intelligible as it guides her to the original wound, to her inner child, becoming her own protector.

In the dark expanse of her mind, the filmmaker imagines memories made up of glowing grains, the sands of time. Like a deep, deep-seabed, they only shimmer into being as we approach: the strange and mysterious wreckage of a life hard-lived.

A voice describes to us the red and orange scenes we see fragments of; these experiences shaped the woman who lived them through breaking and rebuilding, callusing and grinding away.

From time to time an image will swim into view – a dress caught on barbed wire, or discarded on an empty bed - that contains a story we can’t be told. They are sick things with pointed teeth which live under rocks, catching and then releasing us before we have looked at them for long enough to know where they came from.

Every now and then, though, we uncover a little treasure. Beautiful green, glinting scenes hint at moments of peace but their secrets never quite reach the surface, they belong in the parts which we don’t reach. Perhaps they are stories told by a mother to the daughter who shares her scars, shining only for the two of them to understand.

Oriana Franceschi 

Content notes: Distressing themes, physical/emotional abuse

Director filmography: Woman as Image, Man as Bearer of the Look (2022)