Requiem for Ophelia

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Embodied by model Sui He, Shakespeare’s Ophelia appears like a distant memory in an experimental film by director Daniya Scheulova. Daniya Scheulova is a Russian filmmaker sharing her life and work between Paris and Moscow, her native city. Having studied Art and Film Directing in Spain and the USA, Scheulova has directed commercial videos as well as filming and collaborating with dancers, performers and artists. Her multi-cultural and interdisciplinary experiences have led her to explore and apply new and diverse perspectives in film. Glass talked to Scheulova about making Requiem for Ophelia.

“Sui channels this enigmatic almost surreal presence on the set and I immediately took notice of that. She appears as Ophelia, a fictional phantom that becomes almost tangible with the styling and setting by editor-in-chief of Glass Magazine Nicola Kavanagh and Franco Gobbi,” Scheulova says.

“I wanted to transmit Ophelia’s repressed desires and muted emotions as well as a tragical melancholy of a tormented soul. Choppy ambient sounds, distant chanting, light effects echoes with her broken speeches, her mournful sweetness and unresisting tenderness.

“Ophelia emerges from the deep hollowness as an ever-existing reminiscence of feminine fragility and innocence, as a secret spring of natural and feminine feelings.”

Scheulova is currently working on a short narrative film and a documentary.

by Caroline Simpson