A woman goes home after the death of her mother. As she weaves her way through the empty house, memories bubble to the surface at every touch. ‘Dustlight’, by Chryssanthi Kouri, is a quiet, largely dialogue-free piece exploring the lingering effects of grief and the momentous struggle we all face as adults. It demands you take the time to immerse yourself into its naturally-lit visuals and captivating lead performance, as well as to consider the origins and intentions behind the film. Chryssanthi has translated universal experiences of loss and created a stunning film which resonates with you long after the credits have rolled.
“At an impasse in life, Matina returns to the family home to clear out her late mother’s things. There she’s thrown into memories, as past and present collide, and begins to embrace her grief leading to a personal epiphany.”
Where did this beautiful and touching story of grief originate?
The idea for the story was based on my own personal experience. When I was tasked with clearing my mother’s possessions a couple of years after her passing, it brought about a new set of emotions and a deeper understanding of grief which I wanted to use as the jumping off point for the film. It’s also a process that makes you question your own life’s trajectory and future as you’re faced with the idea of mortality. So I wanted to tell a story that explored these experiences and also touched on a more hopeful concept around loss and connection.
The setting is beautiful and the whole film feels so lived in. How did you achieve this?
Early on, when writing the script I knew this was going to be more of a character study than a plot-driven narrative, and would mostly take place in one location. Because it’s such a personal story and thinking practically, I chose to film it at my family’s house on Paros island. A house that was my mother’s passion project, and also a location we could have full access to for free and having this location available to us really helped in pre-production. We spent a long weekend at the house with the production team, the cinematographer and the art director meticulously going through the script, refining the shot list and figuring out the creative and logistic details. I believe that spending that time there, before the craziness of the shoot, bonded everybody with the space so when it came to filming, we dove into it with a defined visual point of view.
It is such a strong character study. What were you looking for in casting and how did you know Youlika Skafida was the right fit?
The whole film is focused on this one character who is in every scene, and so it was important to find someone who could carry that. I was looking for an actor with a strong presence as well as vulnerability, who could ‘speak’ with their eyes. I also wanted to find someone whose personality had a certain playfulness, as I wanted the character to revert to an almost childlike state, a younger version of herself, as the story progressed. I went through a few options while thinking of who to cast. I’d seen Youlika a few years back in the Greek drama series ‘The Island’, an adaptation of Victoria Hislop’s novel, and her performance had this internal force that really impressed me, and she also has a very expressive face. She was one of the first actors I contacted and after she read the script and we had a chat about it, I knew I’d found my lead.
I included these elements as a way to show what was happening in Matina’s subconscious, how she’s trying to connect with her mother. It’s part her memory, part dream and part fantasy.
Tell us about why you wanted to include those haunting whisperings Matina is subject to and the other more surreal-like elements?
There are a few reasons behind those choices. Firstly, when you’re grieving, you often dream of the person who’s passed and those dreams, because of the intensity of the emotion, can feel very vivid. Secondly, when you’re in the in-between state of falling asleep, your subconscious starts to wake and take over and you may experience things like sounds or visions that your perceive as real. So I included these elements as a way to show what was happening in Matina’s subconscious, how she’s trying to connect with her mother. It’s part her memory, part dream and part fantasy. Finally, when you’re dealing with the subject of death there’s always a spiritual element that comes into it. I’m not religious, but I do wonder what happens to the soul, or spirit of a person once their body goes. Where does that energy go? I try to answer that in the final scene. If we are made of stardust, maybe we go back to stardust and continue living as these cosmic molecules that eventually become something else.
Why did you want to steer away from dialogue and did you find anything challenging with this approach?
It was a great exercise in simplicity and in the less is more approach
Since the story follows this character alone in this house, having less dialogue was mostly a given. The film was ultimately shaped into what it is now in post-production. Working closely with my editor, we cut it with the emotional journey of the main character in mind. There was not much dialogue in the film originally and we ended up cutting more of it out as we realised that the story could easily be told with more visuals. I realised a lot of it was simply exposition, or background information we didn’t really need for the story to have the same impact. It was a great exercise in simplicity and in the less is more approach. In cinema, if you can say something by showing it rather than telling it, that’s always better. I think modern audiences are very intelligent and like to use their imagination, so if the backbone of the story is there, and the emotions are communicated they can then connect the dots.
While editing this film I learned to let the material guide me into what it needs to be, to lean into subtle storytelling and allow it to breathe. The music also played a huge part in elevating the visuals and I worked closely with the composer Julia Lima to get the feeling and tone right. The sound design also played a big part in making the viewing experience more immersive.
Both the diegetic and the sonic landscape you created are so beautiful. What did you want to evoke and how did you overlay all those beautiful sounds of the house and garden?
The physical environment of the location really helped with creating the atmosphere. I wanted to evoke a sense of nostalgia, calmness and the feeling of wonder that come from being in touch with nature and simple pleasures. We recorded a lot of sounds on location, like the sea, waves, wind, birds, insects flying, sounds of village life, night sounds, crickets. Once the picture edit was locked, our sound designer Dimitris Sakellaris, built all these elements over the scenes and recorded any additional sounds where needed. I wanted the soundscape to feel real and alive and like spring. I didn’t want it to be clinically clean and I love that we left the noise from a nearby construction site in some shots.
I wanted the film to feel and look realistic, intimate and immersive and there’s such beautiful natural light on the island at that time of year.
Were you able to work with natural light in your location and how did you decide on the very organic look and tone of the film?
We worked with natural light as much as possible. That was one decision agreed on from the start with my cinematographer Dimitris Lambridis. I wanted the film to feel and look realistic, intimate and immersive and there’s such beautiful natural light on the island at that time of year, it was one of the reasons I wanted to shoot in Spring. The tone of the film was clear on the page to begin with, and in pre-production we spend a few days at the location house and talked through what would make sense for the narrative and shot listed every scene, finding the best angles for the light and deciding what needed to be enhanced differently, through practical lighting or cinema lights. Dimitris came up with some great solutions when a scene called for a little bit more ‘magic’, without compromising the naturalistic look.
Grieving is a complicated, painful and sometimes a surprising process, but ultimately it’s a process that has to end in acceptance and hopefully renewal.
What new discoveries did you make in the edit and how did you decide on the trajectory of her journey through this grieving process.
That journey came very organically when writing the script because it was drawn from personal experience. One of the conscious choices I made was, as Matina starts to dwell in her memories of that place, to have her regress to a younger version of herself to find comfort, to a time she remembers as carefree and uncomplicated. Matina dresses in her old clothes that she found at the house, she reads old books and listens to her old cassette tapes. I aso knew I wanted the end of her journey to be hopeful and to end on a higher note. Grieving is a complicated, painful and sometimes a surprising process, but ultimately it’s a process that has to end in acceptance and hopefully renewal.
What do you hope for your film?
My hope with every film I make is for it to connect with the audience. I hope it can move people and make them feel something, whether they can recognise themselves in the character or not. Even when I make a more personal film, I still want to employ a universal language in the stories I tell. With this one in particular I hope it can offer a little bit of relief to people who are experiencing grief.
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