Yalda

"Do you love me?", "Yes", he said, and then... A colourful musical journey into the narrative of a woman's tangled past, with magical glimpses of her present world and hopes for a liberated future. Yalda is a short experimental fiction film made for The City Speaks, an innovative collaborative project developed by Film London Artists' Moving Image Network and BBC Radio Drama. Artist film-makers and writers, collaborating with acclaimed author Peter Ackroyd, composer David Pickvance and specialist sound engineers, were commissioned to create 14 minute audio-visual artworks to form a centre-piece of the BBC Radio 4 season in 2008, celebrating London as a cosmopolitan city. The project provided artist filmmakers with an opportunity to collaborate with writers, and enabled writers to work outside of traditional radio play conventions. The City Speaks is composed of x6, 14 minute audio-visual works, Yalda being one of these, conceived as truly innovative multi-disciplinary and cross-platform artworks for contemporary media to be presented across a range of contexts. In 2008 the project launched at the NFT, London, and broadcast nationally on Radio 4 and across several digital and interactive broadcast platforms. Commissioned by Film London and BBC Radio Drama. Funded by Arts Council England http://www.blanchepictures.com/films/yalda.htm