understory

understory is a poetic fairytale about the transformative power of storytelling. It is a tale of connection found among the darkest ferns of despair.

It is a tale of offering up a story - and all its scars entirely to someone, someone whose pain you know well as you have seen it in the reflection of the mirror before.

understory asks us: What lies beneath the fairytale? The stories we have always known? What do we find beneath the stories we tell ourselves about the world, each other, and who we are? And what stories do we make up to conceal the secrets we crammed deep into our bleeding hearts?

Tale is forever trying to write a love story to save themselves. Then they meet Fairy in the woods - and begin to go looking for breadcrumb trails in each other's past together. Hoping to find a way out of the dark thicket they have grown to keep everyone out, it is no small challenge to open up and share their truest stories with each other.

And they begin to wonder if it is really love that will save them. Or will telling their story break the spell?

Starring Eileen Uméh as Fairy and Ella Schetter as Tale understory is the second poetry film production by poet Kate MacAlister and protest photographer & visual artist Moritz V:3res.