Shelby Dillon is a writer and director. Speaking of Flowers is an experimental meta-stylistic film. It focuses on the relationship between objective and subjective reality between two actors on set. The theme of ‘life imitating art’ is striking here, the film is a journal of the symptoms of miscommunication and human error. Speaking of Flowers is dynamic in its search for true expression and the vulnerability and vast emotions that tug at these inward reflections. The film jumps between the actors’ conflicts on set, where they exist in an abstracted space. The actors delve into a landscape of complicated emotions and physical expressions of frustration, consequently adjusting their styles of communication around their toxic director. Shelby navigates the positive and negative spaces around reality vs surreality, the essence of Speaking of Flowers being the absurdity of human nature and making one’s self known to another.

Shelby Dillon “In Speaking of Flowers, I explored the surreal and the real by constructing two parallel visual spaces /languages: the blue space, the realm of surrealism and subjectivity; and the orange space, the reality the actors live in and are limited by. The flowers surrounding the main characters give the actors an opportunity to physically express the emotions they can’t—or won’t—express verbally in the orange space. In this way, the flowers are points of integration between the abstract and real, the subjective and objective realities. At its heart, the film addresses the need to hide authenticity for the sake of others, and how our bodies hold (and at times, betray) our emotions. Speaking of Flowers is a woman’s journey towards objective and subjective integration, with the flowers guiding her along the way.”