Alice Lyons

Where is Eva Hipsey? is an experimental animated film that blends documentary, fiction and poetry. It is based on a short story written by Justin Spooner. The film seeks to convey the power of sound to store and evoke memory. It both recounts and reimagines aspects of his grandmother’s life. The film is told from the vantage point of her granddaughter, voiced by Olwen Fouéré. Where is Eva Hipsey? mixes fact and fiction to search for a truth or representation of Eva’s reality, past and present. It combines experimental animation techniques with archival material taken from both Spooner and Mc Hardy’s grandmothers’ collections; family photographs, vérité camerawork, sketchbooks and field recordings, to suggest a journey. Driven by curiosity and a desire to listen deeply, Eva explores and attempts to capture the world around her, stepping further and further from the familiar.

The film pays homage to the revitalization of the art of poetry in the Polish language in the second half of the 20th century. Its visual style is based on underground publications in Poland in the 1970s and 1980’s, known as Bibula.