The Severing

Directed by Mark Pellington
Year: 2022
Country: U.S.
Language: English
English Closed Captions

THE SEVERING, from acclaimed filmmaker Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies), is a visceral and powerful feature-length dance film. This cathartic movement piece was created in collaboration with the brilliant choreographer Nina McNeely (Gaspar Noe’s Climax), rising Dutch cinematographer Evelin Van Rei, and editor Sergio Pinheiro. Inspired by the Wim Wenders film Pina, Pellington was interested in expressing feelings and emotions through a “narrative of movement and text”, told through the physical expression of dancers’ bodies and souls. Grief is physical and lies in the body, in our very DNA, which makes movement the ideal way to communicate it. In Pellington’s words, “It’s the way to express what it feels like to be severed or to feel nothing. The film is a cathartic reencounter for anybody who’s felt loss, or isolation, or struggled with these themes: fear, reconnection, isolation.”

"Pellington’s boldest and most audacious film to date... using a sophisticated interplay of choreography, light, and sound design, moves beyond the limitations of narrative to get at something primal and raw."


"Bold, bizarre, haunting."


Cast
Maija Knapp
Ryan Spencer
Blake Miller
Allison Fletcher

Crew
Directed by Mark Pellington