The film is a product of a few friends in the creative industry whose field got a drastic shake up once Covid-19 hit. Finding more time on their hands, they were having a collective feeling and desire to take a step back from society to recalibrate and reconnect with nature. The idea of technology being a driving force of control and disconnect was consistently top-of-mind for them, and they were seeing this trend manifest in other industries, in fashion with cottagecore, in real estate with suburban migration, etc. They decided to use their time and resources to tell a story that they felt would resonate with a wider set of people. Thus, the film was born. Asphodel Fields is an experimental short film that analyzes the cyclical, manipulative grasp that technology has on human beings and the latter’s desperate desire to escape modern life and regain a connection to the natural world. Humanity’s relationship with nature has been distorted, and with time, the devices that we once viewed as modern comforts have turned themselves into objects of control.

Luigi Calabrese is an Italian American Director and photographer based in Los Angeles. Assisting and observing the greats like the late Frank Budgen and Peter Thwaites, he is building a voice in music videos and short form content that is enigmatic, emotionally driven and high concept. The slow burning visuals of his provocative promo for rapper Siimba Selassiie rewrites the Renaissance canon in the light of gun violence and police brutality, placing Black people against a backdrop of power, worship and veneration. Featured in Dividing Lines: An African American and Native American Symposium, it was also officially selected in the Los Angeles Indie Film Festival, Bowery Film Festival NY and Blow-Up international Art Festival Chicago.