Language Decay (2025)

A broken camera and three rolls of film, two daylight and one tungsten, capture days with Eva. The version of the woman on celluloid is more foreign to her than to me, and the version of herself speaking these languages is more foreign to me than to her, but both are not fully in our grasp and slip away and decay. They do not belong to either of us but to time—much like how languages are imperfect and adapt to the needs of those who speak them. Time causes disintegration, wherein different variations and versions emerge. Because of physical separation, my grandmother slowly forgets her native tongue and the languages she spoke as a child, mirroring the movement and transformation of living languages. The act of remembering brings back these decomposing versions of past selves, selves that never were or briefly were, then hidden away but not discarded. The film intentionally chooses to leave all sequences unsubtitled.

Zazie Ray-TrapidoDirector