Sophie’s Place

A culmination of five years of work. Full hand-painted cut-out animation. Totally unplanned, unrehearsed development of scenes under the camera, yet with more ‘continuity’ than any of my previous animations, while meditating on some phase of my life. I call it an ‘alchemical autobiography.’ The film begins in a paradisiacal garden. It then proceeds to the interior of the Mosque of St. Sophia. More and more the film develops into episodes centering around one form or another of Sophia, an early Greek and Gnostic embodiment of spiritual wisdom. She is seen emanating light waves and symbolic objects. (But I must emphasise that I do not know the exact significance of any of the symbols in the film any more than I know the meaning of my dreams, nor do I know the meaning of the episodes. I hope that they – the symbols and the episodes – set off poetic associations in the viewer. I mean them to be entirely open to the viewer’s interpretation.).(LJ) “ …the greatest epic animation film ever, yr wondrous ‘Sophie’s Place’” – Stan Brakhage.