1275 a.C. A young girl is imprisoned in the dungeons of an abbey where an alchemist uses her for his strange experiments. Only a young amanuensis will try to free her at any cost.
2011 a.C. A couple of young teenagers, Cris and Jessy, go missing in the woods while a young woman comes out from the middle of nowhere. During the first investigations, the police find an odd manuscript from a tomb.
Today. Leonardo, the Chief inspector of the Police department, is in charge of the investigation of the two teenagers disappearance. He’s compelled to leave his video-testimony, because in the light of his last findings, he fears for his own life.
Three stories in three different storylines, this is the narrative structure of the film. Apparently far from each other but during the course of the film a common intertwining will be revealed.
Three different storylines narrated with three different languages: the contemporary part is developed as a long interview/testimony (like an investigative documentary); the part set in 2011, is reconstructed throughout the cellphone footage done by the teenagers themselves before they went missing (found footage); and the part taken place in the Middle Ages: a claustrophobic reconstruction (in animation) of the story told by a young amanuensis and his desperate vicissitudes, written down in his “testament” that was retrieved from a tomb.
Three different languages used to rebuilt a “fictitious” fact that is filled with strong connotations and real references, wanting to push away as much as possible the concept of “suspension of disbelief”, trying , on the contrary, to lead the spectator towards a constructed and assembled “realism” in order to fascinate him and intrigue him as well as to disorient him, by transforming the film itself, becoming an essential piece to add to the previous investigations, almost as a “metafilm”.
As in heaven, so on earth is my first written, directed and animated feature film. This is why it’s a movie “without compromises”, that seeks wonder and “magic” through quite unconventional stylistic choices and production decisions.
90 minutes of storytelling, realized throughout 5 years of production: a very independent production that finds its ultimate expression of craftsmanship in the 35 minutes of animation, the “fantastic” part of our story.
Coming for various stop-motion projects, I wanted to develop a different type of animation, closer to puppet animation: rod-puppets with interchangeable expressions. A very rarely used technique, mostly relegated to the animation of miniature monsters and creatures in b-movies in the pre-CGI era: since I had to narrate the events of our “small monsters” as well, I thought it was the perfect technique.
The film, because of its “puzzle” narrative structure, granted me the possibility to make it a binder with everything I’ve experimented and improved so far in a smaller scale, in other projects that I’ve developed in the last 10 years; but also to be a big melting pot of references, even if joined together outside of the universe of As in heaven, so on earth, could seem absurd or impossible.
Ultimately, it’s a film filled with “risky” choices, from which the balance of them as being the most delicate and fascinating part of the entire process. Just as an ancient manuscript done with “opposite and extremes” pages, held together by a single thread: this story.
