this is (not) your ocean

Memories of a queer love that was experienced online, but was cut short because one of the lovers died. Yearning bodies that never touched, two distant worlds, but hearts that were joined.

“Sex is a story, and so is a phone call bringing bad tidings, or an Instagram account that someone forgets to delete. I wouldn’t call love a story though. It is perhaps an ocean—stretching out as far as we choose to see.”

This associative stream of images, partly in split screen, is poetic and experimental, with landscapes and streets, flowers, sun and rain, a hand, a seascape, a computer screen, a chat, a bed—and sometimes a flash of a face or a suggestion of intimacy. At times clear, then again raw and out of focus, as home movies and memories can be. Accompanied by reflections from two voices, as a voice-over and poetic texts (by the late San Francisco queer poet Kevin Killian) on screen, until towards the end filmmaker Jordi Wijnalda himself takes over the story.