Filmmaker Statement

Directors statement BBGL "BlueBeardGasLight" is an experiment: a filmed deconstruction of an ancient and haunting fairy tale; told with puppets; decidedly not-for-children. Designed, conceived, made, written and puppeteered by actress Kyra Miller, the text is a narrated re-adaptation of the French folktale Blue Beard. The handmade puppets are manipulated with magnets, moving through the skeleton of an eerie house, enacting the main beats of the tale -- with a competing post-feminist commentary in the soundscape. The film leans into cinematic, choreographic and narrative tropes from many classic films noir -- "Gas Light," of course, and "Citizen Kane" and "Rebecca," to name a few examples -- to express just how pervasive this disturbing story is in our cinematic language, and therefore in our larger [western] culture. With this film, I write about the liminal space between lies, privacy and secrecy, referencing the cultural descendants (and antecedents) of a fairy tale that might