SHORT OF THE WEEK
“Anomie” by Nataša Prosenc Stearns
Runtime: 12 minutes 38 seconds
Category: Experimental Short
Country of Origin: Slovenia / United States
A Digital Meditation on Disintegration, Ritual, and the Human Condition
In Anomie, filmmaker and visual artist Nataša Prosenc Stearns conjures a haunting, kaleidoscopic meditation on the crisis of human connection, the collapse of values, and the ongoing tension between disintegration and unity. Commissioned by NLB MUZA in Slovenia, the film serves as a digital moving painting—lush with color, rhythm, and layered symbolism.
With its vibrant flowers and abstracted crowds, Anomie becomes a ritualistic audiovisual landscape, merging digital technique with natural motifs. The film explores human fragility in the face of a shifting social fabric, posing urgent questions about identity, wholeness, and the nature of intimacy in a disoriented world.
Goethe’s words echo the tone of the work: “To divide the united, to unite the divided… is the life of nature.” And so the piece breathes—systolic and diastolic—through collapse and cohesion, in a hypnotic visual flow.
Director Biography: Nataša Prosenc Stearns
Slovenian-born, LA-based filmmaker and artist Nataša Prosenc Stearns is renowned for her multi-channel video installations and experimental films. A Fulbright Scholar and MFA graduate from CalArts, her work spans single and multi-channel videos, feature films, video sculptures, and site-specific installations.
Her films include Souvenir (Cinema Epoch), Živa, Hotel Diary, and contributions to the collective feature The Trial of Socrates. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally and recently honored with a retrospective at the Slovenian Cinematheque.
She lives and works between Ljubljana, Slovenia and Los Angeles, California, creating visual experiences that blend cinematic narrative with visual abstraction.
Credits & Specifications
- Directed by: Nataša Prosenc Stearns
- Runtime: 12:38
- Category: Experimental Short / Digital Installation
- Completion Date: 2025
- Country of Origin: Slovenia / USA
- Commissioned by: NLB MUZA, Museum, Gallery and Academy
- Visual Style: Digital kaleidoscope, layered imagery, floral abstraction
- Themes: Collapse of values, human connection, ritual, duality, femininity, disintegration
