Through her eyes

Sappho and Persephone stand together on one plinth in a Greek sculpture garden overlooking the sea — The Greek garden. Sappho and Persephone begin within reach of each other.

With Sappho’s Odyssey, I want two thousand years of love and loss to feel as intimate as a hand resting against a face.

At its heart is the love between Sappho and Persephone. Sappho is an immortal Greek statue, watching the world change around her. I’m drawn to the tenderness of queer love lasting through those changes. Her body may survive centuries, but she can still be broken, carried away, separated from the one she loves. Even with all the time in the world, she can miss someone.

The film begins as a sculptor finishes her. With the last strike of the chisel, we enter her eyes. From there, a hand close by can matter as much as a palace in the distance. Staying with her gaze lets an enormous world feel unexpectedly close. She cannot turn her head. The person she loves might be just beyond the frame.

Working with AI gives me room to try these ideas in images. In Absurd, I talk with the agent about what I’m feeling my way toward. How close do the statues stand? What can Sappho see of Persephone? A fingertip against a cheek became a gesture to return to, something tender enough to carry across the years.

Robin Wang seated at a wooden table — Robin Wang

A sculptor’s tool approaches the eye of a marble statue — The eye. The point where the film enters Sappho’s perspective.

A sculptor stands beside the two completed statues at sunset — The sculptor and the finished pair. Wind and sea move around the stillness of the stone.

Where the light lingers

Tarkovsky and Angelopoulos are touchstones for me. I’m drawn to patient images: a figure in a landscape, weather passing through, light lingering on a face. I want the world around Sappho to invite that kind of attention. Grain, wind and worn stone help me imagine somewhere we could almost step into.

I keep landscapes, characters and textures together in Absurd’s References. They give the conversation with the agent something to return to as the images change. A broken forearm can be a small point of recognition. We’ve travelled somewhere new, and here is the same body, carrying its history.

I asked the agent to research the sculpture, and we explored poses connected to the period. In the garden, I looked for balance and a little irregularity. I wanted to imagine a sculptor spending an afternoon there, someone passing through. Those ordinary lives help a distant world feel warm.

I want to make a film with AI that someone can feel in their body.

Time comes around

Time feels circular to me in this story. Lovers come together and are torn apart; empires rise and fall. Sappho keeps watching. Across all those lives, the wish to be close to someone returns. Love somehow endures. I want us to feel the sweep of history, then recognise a familiar tenderness inside it.

As the script and images changed, I worked with the agent on the rhythm between those moments. Sometimes the film moves through an age; sometimes I want to stay with a face. Having the shots together on the canvas lets me try both, and see where a moment needs a little more room.

What the sea remembers

On the seabed, Sappho lies on her side. I asked for the world to tilt with her, so the seabed runs vertically through the frame. It is an awkward, helpless view. Staying there brings us close to her longing: even here, she is looking toward the person she loves.

We chose a frame and explored the years around it. Seaweed gathers on the marble. Coins settle into the sand. With the agent, I could try small changes while keeping Persephone in the same place. I wanted to feel the length of that wait, the slow weathering of a body that goes on loving.

I returned to the cart sequence with the agent to give Sappho’s broken arm a brief shot of its own. I wanted us to feel that loss before carrying it into the next scene. The damage stays with her as she travels.

Persephone lies on her side on a dark seabed, weathered and covered in growth — On the seabed, the passing years gather on the marble.

A gesture

The touch. An eight-second working take, held on the marble hand.

A point of view

The lowering. A five-second test with the camera attached to Sappho’s movement.

The weight of being held

People lower Sappho onto a plinth. I wanted small sways and hesitations, the care of hands adjusting to her weight. Her arm stays still in our view while the world moves behind it. I’m hoping for a feeling we know in our own bodies: being carried, then finding somewhere to rest.

I worked through that movement with the agent, separating the lowering from Hadrian’s approach to Antinous. It gave me space to linger with each. After the weight of the stone comes the quiet anticipation of one person moving toward another.

Within reach again

In the museum, the curator’s face echoes the sculptor’s. Centuries later, someone is tending to the same figures. I’m drawn to that return. The film finds its way back to a pair of hands caring for them, and this time those hands bring them together.

The two weathered statues face each other in a sunlit museum — Museum study. Together again, carrying the marks of the centuries.

A curator between Sappho and Persephone in the museum — The curator echoes the sculptor: another pair of hands caring for the same figures.

By then, the years are there on their faces. A seam circles Sappho’s neck. Pieces of the marble are missing. I kept those traces in the images because I wanted to meet them as they are now. The joy of finding each other again can hold all that has happened to them.

The curator turns Sappho, and Persephone comes into view. I worked with the agent on where that movement begins and where it ends. I wanted to give the waiting a little space, then let the familiar face appear. At last, we step outside Sappho’s eyes and see them together.

I want to make a film with AI that someone can feel in their body. A face made of stone might bring them back to their own heartbreak, or to a person they still carry with them. I hope the care that goes into these images reaches someone as a feeling they recognise.

In my notes, I called the ending “bittersweet and relieved”. The curator can step away. Sappho and Persephone are within reach again, after all those lives and all those partings. I want to leave them there a little while, with all the time in the world.