The Dutch city of Almere was created between the ancient rivers Helinum and Flevum. Built on reclaimed land, it is a young city resting on older, hidden histories. On this ground, Butler made a small filmic fairy tale.
The film takes place on the coldest and shortest day of the year, a moment close to winter rituals and carnival time, when everyday rules soften and other presences are allowed to appear. In the low light, the city becomes a stage for lost spirits—figures that seem to rise from the buried rivers and forgotten landscapes beneath the streets.
Moving between ritual and imagination, the film treats Almere as a place of passage, where the living and the unseen briefly meet, and where a new city is haunted by what came before it.
Martin Butler 