Animal Bones

A film by Joshua Alexander . Written & starring SJ Fowler . Produced by The Enemies Project

ANIMAL BONES is a short, conceptual poetic film about disease, mortality and the remnants of the British Empire. It was born out of a collaboration between two fellow and former employees of a major British Museum institution, who have often worked together in a professional capacity dealing with the display of ancient human remains.

Animal Bones calls on the miserabalist, absurdist traditions of post-war European avant garde theatre and cinema, juxtaposing a poetic voice over with overheard ‘found’ dialogue. It was shot on location in Hythe Church, on the south coast of England, one of only two open access ossuaries of ancient human bones in the country. 

Animal Bones explores the sad, macabre, abstract threat underlying English culture and its avoidance of mortality through banal conversation and strange juxtapose. It is a film about death hiding in plain sight.