"Need your faith in indie films restored?
Look no further than Mnemophrenia.
Compelling. Smart. Integrated. Great story.
It bodes well for director Eirini Konstantinidou.
She’s someone to watch."
Garen Daly, Director, Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival
ABOUT
EIRINI KONSTANTINIDOU
Writer/ Producer/ Director
For the past several years it has been my ambition to make a feature film around the subject of artificial memories. A humanistic, generation-spanning story asking questions about human identity, virtual reality and the future of cinema. A film that would delve into who we are and where we are going and imagine our species on the brink of its next evolutionary step.
I have directed four short films, which have been shown in international film festivals. My film “I love you..?” won first prize in the 2007 Thessaloniki Short Film Festival and the short film “Snapshots” won the first prize at the Dorset Cereals film competition.
DEFINITION OF 'mnemophrenia' (ni-mä-frē-nē-ə)
The word 'mnemophrenia' was coined for the film. It's a portmanteau of the words 'mneme' and 'schizophrenia'.
In the film 'Mnemophrenia' the word is defined as: 'A condition or a state characterized by the coexistence of real and artificial memories, which affects the subject's sense of identity.'
ORIGINS OF MNEMOPHRENIA
Mnemophrenia and its exploration of the future of cinema and the advancement of Virtual Reality technology has a significant resonance for the current period when immersive filmic experiences are increasing, 3D film technology is more widely used and Virtual Reality technology is having a comeback to popular culture especially with the long awaited launch of various VR platforms. Thus the first seeds of the VR development that is explored in the film are being sown today.
Mnemophrenia was originally conceived as part of my PhD studies in Film and it constitutes the foundation of my research. The starting point and source of thematic inspiration for Mnemophrenia were the numerous science fiction films that have previously explored the relationship between technology and memory and the subsequent creation of artificial memories.
Where most sci-fi films present purely dystopian futures, I want to offer an alternative: a glimpse of a technological society that can learn to embrace the different, where empathy can be downloaded, and where the merging of biological and digital may lead to a new humankind.
IMPROVISATION
I used improvisation in order to build the characters and the shooting script for the whole film.
I believe that realistic dialogue and performances that are achieved through improvisation contribute to the intended blurring of the distinction between reality and fiction.
Part 1 needed to be made first and edited in order for the actors of the following period (part 2) to watch it and build their characters’ experiences from what they have watched; according to the premise of the film these videorecordings become part of their memories and identity. That is the process that the actors of part 3 had to go through as well.
This technique allows for an organic development of the characters and dialogue, which is a result of the creative collaboration between the actors and myself.