/// MISSION BRIEFING

When they find one another by chance in the middle of the woods, old friends Zach and Ellyn seem smiled-upon by the gods of summer, fated for a carefree season ranging across hills, lakes and forests. Gradually, however, their charmed reunion is distorted by an unseen but ever-expanding presence. Are they hidden in a quiet glade after all, or perched on the tip of the universe, buffeted by cosmic winds? Directed, shot, and edited by Ian Clark, A Morning Light finds a new mode for the sci-fi thriller, one of insomniac watchfulness. With its eerily precise photography and uncanny soundscape that pulses, rumbles, and roars behind sedate scenery, it poses the otherworldly as something very near, something embedded in our own eyes and ears. — Jon Kieran, New Orleans Film Festival