Connatural

synopsis

This documentary, shot on black and white film, is an excruciating meditation on living close to death, which is nonetheless an inseparable part of life. Three generations of women live in one home, away from other people: an ageing mother, her two daughters, and her granddaughter. In long, slow shots, we see ordinary, regular actions that make up their day: braiding hair in the morning, cleaning the mother’s feet, reading the evening prayers. Lyrically stylized scenes depict their lives as an endless succession of moments of solitude, but which in their sequence and repetition gain strength, approaching analogy in the surrounding beautiful but inert nature.

“Connatural stems from a need to express a series of emotions and thoughts related to the human condition. It delves into universal issues that are not usually represented as the experience of old age, everyday life and closeness to death.” J. Bellido

biography

Javier Bellido (1985) is a filmmaker and painter who has exhibited not only in his native Peru, but also abroad, such as in Chile, Colombia, the United States, France, and Germany. Together with Ana Balcázar, he filmed the medium-length surreal drama Sinmute (2008) about a man whose reality becomes intertwined and pierced by the world of his subconscious. He is currently finishing his master’s degree in visual anthropology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

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