The film Misericorde inhabits a dreamscape of an insomniac, moving through a land of distorted mirrors.
In the Middle Ages a misericorde was a weapon used to put a wounded knight out of his misery. As a theological term, it refers to forgiveness and compassion. In French it has been used as an invocation, notably in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: "Christ have mercy on us!" That there may be no one listening (or arriving) remains a central anguish, felt in the depression, addiction and other disorders that are normal responses to increasingly abnormal culture. This film inhabits a dreamscape of an insomniac, moving through a land of distorted mirrors, fluctuating boundaries, and uncertain identity. A man fractured in narcissistic multiplications, a woman convulsed in neurotic gesticulations, are lost both to themselves and to each other. Yet there is a beauty to their shared ordeal, a nature pulsing with possibilities as near and intimate as they seem out of reach. It suggests the accord that comes with awareness, the passion that springs from despair.
Nataša Prosenc Stearns is a Slovenian-born Los Angeles-based visual artist and filmmaker working in the field of Expanded Moving Image, dissolving the boundaries between film, video, print, and installation. Her work explores subconscious worlds, the materiality of the body, contemporary alienation, and the elemental force of water. She received her BA from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana and moved to Los Angeles on a Fulbright Grant to pursue an MFA at the California Institute of the Arts.
Nataša represented Slovenia at the 48th Venice Biennale and has exhibited internationally at institutions including the Doulun Museum of Art, ARCO Madrid, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana. Her films and videos have screened at SXSW, Films de Femmes, and the Brooklyn Film Festival, among others.
Her immersive installations seek to reconnect viewers with the “life-world” — experience prior to analysis — creating sensorial environments where body, perception, and nature converge. Balancing physical intimacy with transcendence, her work invites audiences into spaces where the boundaries between self and world begin to dissolve.
Premiere - Ibiza Cinefest 2024
McMinville Short Film Festival 2024
Queens World 2024
Director - Nataša Prosenc Stearns
Producer - Nataša Prosenc Stearns
Actor - Natasha Maidoff
Cinematographer - Lisa Stoll
