FIVARS 2016 Selection: Invisible
Today we shine a light on FIVARS 2016 selection “Invisible” – an extraordinary short film by director Lilian Mehrel created for immersive 360 video playback technology that is full of heart and nuance.
We spoke to director Mehrel about this special work:
Invisible 360 – Director’s Statement
Invisible is a short virtual reality film that takes a 360º look at what it means to feel invisible – or seen – through a minimalist live-action narrative.
Our story begins and ends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, introducing us to three characters with varying experiences of being acknowledged. We hear their thoughts as we flow from a museum guard – whose job is to be invisible – bantering with a nearby sculpture, to an artist and new mother of twins recalling the first time they looked at her, to a lonely trans girl perceived mistakenly by all but a blind woman.
The film is inspired by Lana Wachowski, and the story she revealed at the HRC Visibility Awards. This trans woman we know as the cinematic visionary behind The Matrix was almost lost to the world once. Struggling with how the world saw – or didn’t see – her, she wanted to disappear. She went to a typically-empty train platform to jump. On that day, someone happened to be there. And because that stranger looked her in the eye, and didn’t look away – she is still here.
About Director Lilian Mehrel
Lilian was born to a Kurdish-Iranian mother and German-Jewish father, sparking her life-long experience of multiple worlds. From Miami public school, she went to Dartmouth College, where she was awarded a Senior Fellowship. She wrote and illustrated a 226-page family memoir. Her stories reveal the underlying universalities she sees between people, shaped by her work connecting youth from conflicting countries. Lilian’s work includes creating a James Franco behind-the-scenes series, videos for Vogue, and a collaboration with Within’s virtual reality films and the Portals project at the United Nations, as the Shared Studios Storyteller. She created one of the first virtual reality narratives – haunt – which played at Tribeca’s Interactive Playground.