Your apartment is making you anxious. No, it’s not neurosis this time. A phone call causes wild, blood-curdling panic. Your present didn’t begin just now. The small music box carries you into a liminal space — somewhere between the sofa and yesterday, between childhood and analog cinema. What even is this place I call home? And who is this person that reminds me of myself?

Japanese filmmaker Kawazoe, known to RIGA IFF audiences as the creator of the philosophical riddle Howling (2023), moves toward a concept steeped in formalism. It is a parable about liminal life — we are that which exists between one state and another. Shot on Super 8 and digital formats, it mesmerises with a rich palette of sounds and images, including double exposures, strobe lights, and other cinematic tricks. Conceived as the first instalment in a trilogy for the Film for Music project, the short film offers a deep bow to Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) and its exploration of the intersections of psyche and cinema.