The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga Teaser from Myriapod Productions on Vimeo.

Hear My Eyes screenings are experimental, audiovisual experiences that push the conventions of film and sound beyond their traditional forms. Each event consists of the screening of a film paired with an original score performed live by local musicians. These events playfully alter the traditional cinema experience, while providing a unique and creative platform for the musicians to engage with.

Musicians

The musicians for this Hear My Eyes performance are Monty Hartnett, Casey Hartnett and Thom Plant, who collectively make up the band Sleep Decade. Monty and Casey also currently play in Melbourne based bands, Sagamore, Love Migrate, Dreamin' Wild and Mallee Songs, as well as producing their own solo music.

Sleep Decade blend dream pop, distorted folk and dense synth drones into delicately executed, deeply atmospheric songs. The three piece find a multitude of ways to make expansive, languid sounds fascinating. Warm vocals, looped guitar textures, simple bass motifs and minimalist drumming emanate from the trio like billowing clouds - subtle, but dynamic music making ample use of space in a way redolent of classic slowcore bands like Codeine and Blue Tile Lounge.

The musicians will combine analogue synthesis, guitars, bass, drums, saxaphone and tape loops to create a series of ambient and experimental soundscapes. Using these instruments the musicians' will exhibit their personal interpretations of the film.

For samples of these artists' work online, we encourage you to look at the following links:

Sleep Decade http://sleepdecade.bandcamp.com/

Film

The film being screened for the inaugural event will be Jessica Oreck's acclaimed 'The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga', a fusion of documentary footage and hand drawn animated storyboard panels. Questioning our relationship with the natural world, the film plays on our instinctual fear of the wilderness, and conflictingly, the constant threat we pose to nature. Oreck explores these themes through playful philosophy, thought provoking poetry and impressionistic 16mm shot images of gorgeous Romanian, Hungarian and Polish forests and countrysides (extraordinarily shot by cinematographer Sean Price Phillips).

The spine of the film is the animated re-telling of the traditional Slavic folktale of a young brother and sister who are lost in the depths of the forest and forced to barter for their lives with the powerful force of nature, the Witch Baba Yaga.

The Vanquishing is a mesmerising journey through dense forests of thought with a particular focus on family, ritual, tradition and shared memory.

Among others, the film has screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival, The BFI London Film Festival, Hot Docs Film Festival and MoMA ' New Directors/New Films.

"A poetic, mesmerizing fusion of fairy tale and cultural commentary from director Jessica Oreck"

- Variety