Lunacy is a film and installation experience created on a remote compound in Australia’s ancient Daintree Rainforest. Improvised over a three-week period with an ensemble cast, the unscripted project is in part inspired by Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel.

Told in nine movements, the allegorical narrative follows six strangers who receive an invitation to a rainforest retreat. When the enigmatic host fails to arrive, the guests gradually realise they are inexplicably unable to leave. As tensions rise, the strangers are forced to confront their true nature.

Through its improvised framework, the piece explores the degree of ‘lunacy’ we often enact and experience as a result of our separation from the natural world and our true self. The interconnected nature of everything, symbolised by the film’s climactic motif of the eclipse and the mysterious host, points to a deeper truth. The host, the eclipse and the ancient rainforest become symbols of a lost connection to spirit and the unspoken intelligence of the universe. The visitors in the house descend into madness in this concrete compound – a situation that echoes humanity’s own disconnect from the environment and ancient wisdom, as we get lost in concrete jungles and mental constructs.

The interconnected characters, played by Bobbi Salvör Menuez and Isabel Lucas, journey towards a symbolic ego death. A journey that eventually releases them from their

fractured psyche, represented by the other characters in the house. A journey of self-discovery that ultimately points to hope for a reconnection to the natural world, the beautiful mysteries of the universe and the innate wisdom that lies at the core of our being.

Lunacy was developed with the cast and crew in a collaborative environment of performance and movement workshops, while living in the remote Rainforest location in Cape Tribulation. The film features performances by Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Isabel Lucas, Hunter Page-Lochard, Lily Sullivan, Kirin J Callinan, Priscilla Doueihy and Trevor Jamieson.

The project features music by These New Puritans in combination with original music by Matteo Zingales and additional music by Laurie Anderson, Michael Askill, Tenzin Choegyal, The Church, Steve Reich, Jesse Paris Smith and John Tavener.

Lunacy is designed as both a linear feature film and a multi- screen installation. In the installation experience, the film’s nine movements are presented as separate looping projections. The placement of the screens implies the underlying chronology, but the audience can navigate the story spatially in their own time.

Daniel Askill