NOWNESS: Childhood Homesick

Sage Bennett and Angela Trimbur unlock the buried emotions of an abandoned childhood home with dance as a state of release

Dancing through the complicated familial ghosts of the past, filmmaker Sage Bennett and dancer-choreographer Angela Trimbur co-direct short film Childhood Homesick, reclaiming the emotional space of an abandoned childhood home.

Introduced to an old convent in Brooklyn by cinematographer Rob Berry, Trimbur identified the same wallpaper that adorned her childhood kitchen, imagining the state of catharsis experienced in a place representing our early memories. As the foundations of the film’s development, this space came to embody the dusty emotions that rise from youth, evolving into largely-improvised choreography exploring past highs and lows from a new perspective, molded by experience.

“We fell in love with the space, so we built the story around it. The idea of breaking into a place that represented your abandoned childhood home and dancing through the catharsis – breathing new life into the home, and experiencing past pains as a new, more evolved version of self, in a nostalgic place that you maybe miss – or actually maybe not.”

Delving into a compelling range of unpredictable emotions to the pulsating rhythm of Róisín Murphy’s Ramalama (Bang Bang), Trimbur invites reflection on the release achieved through expression – in this case, dance. Shooting the majority of the project on a vintage zoom lens with ample natural light afforded by their location, Bennett and Berry capture the nostalgic essence of the space in contrast to the intensity of Trimbur’s character’s experience – encouraging viewers to find their own meaning in her emotional narrative conclusion. 

Director // @sagebennett

Talent // @angelatrimbur