What is the film about?

First year film at Royal College of Art.

“Baraa” focuses on the impact of grief and its influence on distorting our perception of reality and how hard it is to let go the idea that never came true.

What influenced it?

The grotesque and distorted proportions of the main characters were influenced by the etchings of Fransisco Goya, and the overall gloomy surreal atmosphere by the animations of the Polish animator Piotr Dumala. To emphasize the claustrophobic feel of anxiety, the space of the house was skewed in fish eye manner inspired by the works of M. C. Escher.

A little background information...

The story was vaguely based on the experience of the woman who possibly suffered from
stillbirth or who never managed to conceive a child. After reading anonymous journals of the
parents who have lost their children in young age, I noticed that many of them are talking about
the fear of confronting other people and the painful reality, so some of them stayed at home
even for a year to avoid it.

How was the film made?

The animation has been fully done in TvPaint, frame by frame method. The textures have been done on paper with charcoal and ink. The sound of the animation was composed by using heavily distorted synthesizer and recorded altered instruments like waterphone and mandolin.