Dear Kevin: An Experiment in Self-Actualisation

Kate Ferguson’s Dear Kevin is a 5-minute experimental film glimpsing the process of reflection and grasping a sense of self without some of the things that had outlined it in the past—chiefly a lover, the eponymous Kevin. 

A visually striking affair in 8mm and black-and-white that leans towards a softly overexposed look, the film, featuring Stevie Marceaux, is a kaleidoscope of fleeting images from a mind attempting to order itself. They are fleeting like the glimpse of a bird, perhaps an arctic one, rather than the disorder of a storm. They evoke the nascence of a new day. One that is not so fresh as to be without history—hence the repetitions and tangles of sound akin to some of Ethel Cain’s work and Grouper’s work—but using the epistolary structure of the voiceover narration (Ferguson), they denote a restart through reflection. The lo-fi quality of the audio creates a lovely sense of something truly personal, complementing the musicality of the narration. 

Where the opening line is clean and complete, every line hence is looped, broken, distorted, interrupted. Well begun is half done, but the rest of the way is paved with every thwarted attempt and breakdown that turns up to accompany you to the finishing line.  

The images—fragments of home, objects, canopies, the ocean, a breakdown—construct the impression of active memory-keeping, a scrapbook of the narrator’s life after the addressee. The editing is elliptical, frequented by jump cuts and shifting axes. 

Together, the sound and image in Dear Kevin synthesise fractals of joy in the process of finding your footing in the world again. It will not be perfect, but it will be forged one painstaking grain at a time. 

Watch Dear Kevin Short Film