To the Moon

TO THE MOON is a beautiful and poetic cinematic ode to the moon. Made primarily from international cinematic archive in combination with literary fragments and original moonlit cinematography filmed across five continents, TO THE MOON steps lightly through the ages and ideas that people have drawn from the moon to meditate on the fragile and fleeting nature of humanity.

There is perhaps nothing more universal than looking at the moon. As long as humans have walked the earth, our closest heavenly companion has captivated the nightly imagination. A ghostly presence that carries its own monthly death and resurrection, the moon is a melancholy figure – our planet’s barren twin.
And yet it has a deeply joyous aspect – the full glow of its light is a wonder, all the more because of its fleeting nature.
As a canvas for human creativity the moon is unsurpassed – it has been sung to, implored, made woman and man; imagined as the beginning of heaven, the source of love, death, dreams and birth; it has been utopia to our dystopic planet; it has been – rightly and wrongly – held responsible for everything from insanity to fertility, from the tides to the mysterious journey of eels across the oceans; an empty and lifeless rocky globe, we have somehow made it everything to us.
An essay film, TO THE MOON does not seek (nor could it ever achieve) a total cultural history of its subject. Rather it weaves its stories and fragments into a thread that serves as a guide across unexpected and magical terrain. Following the cyclical structure of one complete lunar phase, the film moves through its themes, combining an associative freedom with a controlled narrative style.