The Institution of Loneliness is a concept derived from a spatial design project, studying and exploring the theme of loneliness and what the emotion would look like if it was a physical space.
The Institution is an enormous abstract and minimalistic glass building, inspired by the architecture of mountains and the shape of cubes. It is located in an arctic desert in a parallel universe, where the landscape looks like a field of duvets, filled with layers of ice and snow, and all you can see wherever you turn is complete emptiness. Each floor of the building is filled with cube-shaped cells, all reminiscent of blocks of ice. They are mirror cubes, designed to torture lonely souls. Each and every person who feels lonely in the real world, ends up in a loneliness cell at the institution in their minds, and because loneliness feels different to everyone, the cell that the lonely one inhabits, changes its appearance to resemble the place in which the lonely one feels the most lonely in reality.
The short film tells the story about a teenage girl imprisoned at the Institution, due to the loneliness she is feeling, caused by technology and social media. She dreams about escaping to a magical treehouse and becomes friends with loneliness, as if the emotion was a person.
Final Major Project for University of the Arts London: Wimbledon College of Arts' Set Design for Screen course, 2018.
First Class Honours Degree and winner of The Spatial Design Prize.
Film is written, directed, designed and produced by Celina Bassili
Film credits
Writer/Director/Producer: Celina Bassili
Director of Photography: Dominika Besinska
Production Designer: Celina Bassili
Editor: Shiny
Costume Designer: Tonje Thorsrud
Music: Mountaineers by Susanne Sundfør
Starring: Tyra Albine as Lonely Girl and Sander Marcus as Loneliness