We Were Here Once – A Letter to the Ones Beyond the Stars

Voyager 1 and 2 each carried a Golden Record, a disc which carried sounds, images, music and greetings from our planet to anyone or anything that might come across the spacecraft as they travel through interstellar space. Yet what would you write if you were to send your own missive to the ones beyond the stars? This deeply thought-provoking short film by Véras Fawaz focuses on an elderly gentleman, approaching death with quiet dignity, who is about to send his final message. As well as being a beautiful piece of film-making, with the visual richness of a full-length movie, the message that the old man sends into space is something very special. Shaped by the awareness of his own mortality, as well as that of those he loves and loved, the letter presents us as fragile, yet driven and very, very, well, human. It confronts issues that are very twenty-first century – how we fill our lives with stories and screens to cope with fear, even though that might make us feel more disconnected…