RETIREMENT FROM WAR  — JUNE 2023

A poetic hybrid documentary on healing, indigenous spirituality, and identity.

Project Description: Retirement from War is a hybrid docu-drama and MA Film Studies dissertation project, filmed in Colchester, Essex, along the estuary, a graveyard, forest trail, and at the University of Essex film studio. The documentary explores indigenous spirituality as a tool for healing, using fictional chapter markers and phone-call-style interviews. Structured around five healing phases inspired by grief and ancestral knowledge, the film blends poetic, autobiographical, ethnographic, and avant-garde modes to unpack identity, displacement, and the journey toward wholeness.