Still Life is a short film that explores the unstable boundary between perception and reality through a fragmented narrative structure. The story follows a character whose experience of the world becomes increasingly shaped by subjective projection, where memory, imagination, and lived experience begin to overlap. The film unfolds through dislocated temporal sequences and flashbacks, destabilizing linear causality and placing the spectator within an uncertain interpretative position. Rather than resolving this ambiguity, the work sustains it, treating perception as an active process through which reality is continuously reconstructed.

The initial concept of the project emerged from a narrative developed in a previous exercise, centered on a controlling mother–son relationship, where the mother exerts absolute influence over the son’s life. However, during the writing process, it became evident that the core of the project was not the dynamic between these two figures, but rather the instability between reality, memory, and imagination.

As a result, the original structure was abandoned, while retaining a triangular relational scheme between a male figure and two female presences. The maternal figure was transformed into an internalized presence: a voice that observes, knows, and supervises. This figure is embodied by the same actress, emphasizing the idea that both memory and imagination construct characters in previously experienced human forms. The distinction between external presence and internal projection is therefore deliberately blurred.

A key narrative element is the protagonist’s relationship with a book, which functions as a threshold between reality and projection. This is expressed visually through editing techniques such as dissolve cuts during page transitions, as well as through the constant physical presence of the book in scenes that are perceived as real. The character does not consciously recognize this influence; instead, he inhabits it. The ambiguity is maintained intentionally, allowing the spectator to experience the same uncertainty.

The structural rupture occurs in the final sequence. The interruption of the protagonist’s immersion through the intercom, combined with the disappearance of both the artificial night aesthetic and the internal female presence, marks a return to a singular, destabilized reality. This moment functions as both climax and point of reorientation.

In its current version, the film follows the script’s structure. However, in the ongoing edit, the act of violence will be repositioned at the beginning of the film. This restructuring aims to establish an initial condition that generates a “why,” shifting the viewer’s engagement from observation to investigation. Within this framework, flashbacks operate as narrated memories addressed to the internal female figure, further complicating their ontological status.

The selection of locations played a formative role in the development of the script itself. The contrast between the low-rise, fragmented urban landscape of Tetuán and the vertical density of Barrio del Pilar introduces a spatial duality. The former is associated with a sense of immediacy and lived reality, while the latter,particularly the apartment on the ninth floor,suggests a position of elevation and apparent control. This vertical movement echoes a conceptual ascent, a distancing from grounded experience.

The visual approach is based on precise pre-planning through storyboarding. The camera operates primarily as an observer, maintaining distance and control over the staging. Only in specific moments does it approach subjectivity, particularly in close-ups or in sequences associated with memory and perception. This controlled visual strategy reinforces the idea that the cinematic reality presented is constructed rather than spontaneous. The use of “day-for-night” is a deliberate aesthetic choice. The blue tonal quality associated with classical Hollywood night scenes introduces a sense of artificiality and estrangement. This contrasts with the warmer tones of daytime sequences, which are associated with a more stable perception of reality. Notably, the scene in the girl’s bedroom avoids both tonal systems, functioning as a point of convergence between imagined and lived experience. Sound design does not function narratively but atmospherically. It does not explain or guide, but instead supports the sense of disorientation and constructed reality. Silence and minimal dialogue further reinforce this condition.
The project is framed conceptually by the opening reference to a Hegelian idea: the human impulse to transform external reality. This notion operates both as a meta-commentary on artistic creation and as a conceptual parallel to the act of violence within the film. The work engages with specific literary and cinematic references. The influence of Crime and Punishment is not thematic in a direct sense, but structural and psychological. The fragmented perception and internalization of experience associated with Rodion Raskolnikov informed the construction of the protagonist, not as a philosophical agent, but as a subject absorbed by his own interpretative framework. Cinematically, the work draws from the logic of ambiguity present in the films of David Lynch and Yorgos Lanthimos, particularly in works such as Lost Highway and Nimic, where identity, continuity, and meaning remain unresolved. This openness is not treated as a lack of clarity, but as the central condition of the work. Finally, the reference to The Luncheon on the Grass operates as a visual and conceptual gesture. It introduces a constructed, almost theatrical staging, while simultaneously functioning as a subtle commentary on the gaze itself.

MUJER/MUJER IMAGINADA VICTORIA ALVAREZ
HOMBRE/HOMBRE IMAGINADO ZAVEN
CHICO EN EL ASCENSOR MICHELE CARDONE
CHICA EN EL ASCENSOR SASHA MARIE RUNGE

Guion y Dirección NIKOLAOS I. KAMMAS
Dirección de Fotografía ARGY
Ayudante de Dirección SASHA MARIE RUNGE
Montaje ARGY/ MANOLIS FOTINOS
Color ARGY
Diseño de Sonido ODD.FOG / TEO VALASIADIS
Auxiliar de Producción
Fotografía de Rodaje MICHELE CARDONE
Vestuario
Maquillaje
Peluquería LORAINE FÉNIX DE HOYOS

Agradecimientos Especiales
a Lory,Laura y Josh por su tiempo
al Café Emka Coffee Specialty & Brunch
a la Floristería Mon Parnasse
a la Facultad de Bellas Artes de la Universidad Complutense

© Nikolaos Ilias Kammas