I AM A RIVER

by Heidi PIIROINEN
2026 / 16mm / color / sound / 1 screen / 6' 10

I am a River is an experimental short that reveals the hidden narratives carried by water. The film draws inspiration from Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions, weaving poetic inquiry with visual abstraction through the mordançage technique. The film reflects on the reciprocity between human perception and the natural world. Using the transformative and decaying aesthetics of mordançage, the film evokes the fluid, fragile, and ever-changing essence of rivers. As layers peel and images distort, it suggests that rivers are not silent – they are living entities with memory, culture, and voice. Their bodies, like ours, hold complexity: catchments, deltas, and wetlands as organs, and flowing currents as veins. Both vulnerable and vital, rivers mirror our own existence. The river flows through us, and we through it.

We are rivers.

Sound by Salla Hämäläinen / Aino Sound. Produced by Heidi Piiroinen and PALO Art Productions / Stéphane Querrec. With the support of AVEK Audiovisual Centre, Alfred Kordelin Foundation, The Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Filmverkstaden / Britt Al-Busultan, HelScan / Artturi Mutanen.



No print in distribution