Em Assumes Death (2024). Film still.
Single channel film. 36 min. HD. 16:9. Color. Stereo sound / 5.1 surround sound.
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Em is drowning in a river. This 18-year-old loner has watched hundreds of hours of content on the Law of Assumption: a popular belief of a new online spirituality that everything you assume will be manifest into reality. Em tries to realize this Law, but his confrontation with Death is unusual. Rather than life flashing before his eyes he is faced by his manifestation coach, Tammy, and the videos that inspired him to level up and transform.
Em Assumes Death (2024). Film still.
Em Assumes Death (2024). Film still.
Em Assumes Death (2024). Film still.
In a time when our lives are increasingly spent on observing, analyzing and interpreting ourselves - as well as tying ourselves to our own identity - Confessions embodies a cognitive dissonance: the overwhelming contradiction of constantly both doubting and affirming oneself. I believe that we by voicing our pains and struggles of subjectification might expose emotional, cognitive and social dissonances, as well as open ourselves up for new understandings and connections. We might even find ways of breaking out of our ceaselessly looping thoughts and inner tyrants. That is at least my hope.
With Diêm Camille, Johan Bech Jespersen, Klaus Tange, Carla Eleonora Feigenberg, Niels Justesen, Camilla Søeberg
WRITER, DIRECTOR & CINEMATOGRAPHER Jacob Schill
SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT Luke Buckley, Daro Hansen,
Jonas Algers and Gala Hernández López
EDITOR Grit Tind Mikkelsen
ADDITIONAL EDITING Daniel Abraham Basse and Jan-Niklas Thape
CASTING ASSISTANCE Gro Therp
SOUND RECORDIST Rasmus Emil Mikkelsen
RUNNER Julie Nymann
Thanks to Jane Jin Kaisen, Agnieszka Polska and Maria Colomer Canyelles
MEDIUM 7-channel video installation
SOUND 4-channel, 3 x stereo
ASPECT RATIO 4:5
RESOLUTION 1700 x 2125
LANGUAGE English
Confessions is divided into five chapters:
IN THE SKY OF THE MIND
Length: 02:57 min. Single channel video. Stereo sound. Loop.
PERSONAL ATTENTION
Length: 19:02 min. 4-channel video. 4-channel sound. Loop.
LIKE I COULD GROW IF YOU LET ME
Acrylic mirror glass mounted on aluminum frame. Dimensions: 200 cm x 300 cm 4 cm.
YOU KNOW VERY WELL THAT I’M NOT REALLY WHAT YOU THINK I AM
Length: 03:34 min. Single channel video. Stereo sound. Loop.
MY NAME
Length: 03:15 min. Single channel video. Stereo sound. Loop.
“Em Assumes Death” has been made in time when symptoms of depression in Western teenagers are skyrocketing, life is atomized and planet-wide destruction spirals according to market interests, extractivism and inequality. An impending sense of catastrophe and collapse looms strong over us. And yet. Ideals of discovering one’s hidden potential are flourishing. Feelings of self-sufficiency and limitlessness promulgate at will. We seem to be freer than ever, and yet we feel but a decreasing sense of control.
In “Em Assumes Death” I wanted to reflect these contemporary ideals and sentiments through the prism of the 18-year-old protagonist Em and through a flood of content creators who all believe in the practice of manifestation and in the Law of Assumption — a belief inside online spirituality that everything one assumes to be true ultimately must manifest into reality.
Much like the film’s protagonist, Em, I first encountered the Law of Assumption on a rabbit-hole ride down the social media realm of manifestation; inside torrents of immediate intimacy mediated through a POV cinematography that suspends the space between image and audience. Early on, I knew that I wanted to work with this intensely individualized and profitably personal experience of being online. I wanted to encapsulate the fear, the desire, the loneliness, the community and the overwhelming confusion I saw, and which people of any age will sense, I hope, as they watch clip after clip of addictive, click-baited, and yet profound, pieces of advice.
Ultimately, I wanted Em’s story and the characters of the net-found footage to act as mirrors for the audience, and for “Em Assumes Death” to capture the mounting pressure on young adults to self-realize in a increasingly bewildering world.
DIRECTOR Jacob Schill
SCREENPLAY Jacob Schill and Luke Buckley
CAST David Alexander Jensen, Jada Brazil and Karim Theilgaard
EDITING Carl Gustav Nordentoft, Alberto Dexeus and Jacob Schill
SOUND DESIGN Mia Terry
VFX Zafer Fanari
3D ANIMATION Tanya Sokolova
MUSIC Daniel Abraham Basse
CONSULTANTS Adam Khalil and Steven Zultanski
VRCHAT AVATAR ARTIST Natam Braga
PRODUCTION SUPPORT Frej Volander Himmelstrup
VRCHAT RECORDING Samuel Ibsen
SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT Madeleine Andersson, Maria Colomer Canyelles and Philip Ullman
Supported by Kunsthal Charlottenborg and Aarhus Film Workshop
Distributed by Gargantua Film Distribution
