Diyala Muir makes animated films and loops surrounding the human cycles of loneliness and sexual desire. Inspired by her own experiences with anxiety and living in a bustling neighbourhood of Brixton in south London, she wanted to make a film that 'captures that fleeting, abstract, post-party bubble that adolescence sometimes induces.'

'Who was looking at me? Were they talking about me? Does he like me? Little obsessions that stick in your head the next day and won’t leave you alone, meaning you are dragged away from reality. I have been particularly susceptible to this in the past and for whatever reason was feeling very nostalgic the summer before my final year at the RCA, and was making lots of little poems about such feelings.'

'I was also very inspired by where I was living at the time, Brixton. The colours and food of the marketplace are so vibrant that I felt it was a perfect setting for the character, as they were great triggers for her to go in and out of her fantasy. Brixton is also such a chaotic place and people often stare or shout things at you - so I also thought that was relevant for the film, to highlight the paranoia and chaos in her head.'

The images flow between memory and fantasy, slowly weaving themselves into the chaotic street scene, engulfing her into a sinister world of talking fish, weeping sunflowers and a suspiciously haunting grin.

'Most of my work takes on a stream-of-consciousness format, I like to do this so that I can play between fantasy and reality. That’s what I love about animation, the transformations and sounds and camera movements all build up to give us the inner and outer worlds of the protagonist. This is usually how I like to tell a story - I don’t want to shove a narrative down the viewer’s throat, but give them an impression of what it’s about and leave it up to them to fill in the details.'

‍

diyalamuir.com