Watch Terence Nance’s Beautiful Short Film, You And I And You
The filmmaker mines his spiritual subconscious for the seven-minute clip.
If you've heard of artist, filmmaker, and musician Terence Nance, it's likely because of his breakout 2012 feature film An Oversimplification of Her Beauty. The film, in which Nance plays a fictionalized version of himself, premiered at Sundance and quickly earned accolades and support in the form of producer credits from the likes of Jay Z, Wyatt Cenac, and Wangechi Mutu.
You And I And You, Nance's latest short film-cum-music video for a pair of 2013 songs by Brooklyn band The Dig, has the same arresting, wrenched-from-the-psyche spirit as An Oversimplification. "The songs are playing at transcendence and simplicity and unseen forces," Nance told Nowness by way of explanation. "I think that those things worked their way from the music to my subconscious, and then into the film."
In You And I And You, a young family walking through the woods is accosted by supernatural beings and spirits, who float down the road in choreography that is impossible to take your eyes off. As the family interacts with various deities, Nance goes deep into the recesses of human imagination and gives it form, not for a second doubting the presence of the mystical in our rational world.
