To Die into a Bird
Film | 20 min | Work-in-progress | Dartmoor National Park | UK
A fairytale. A music epic. A visual hybrid of dance, sculpture, song, and ritual.
To Die into a Bird is a myth whispered by wind and stream—an offering to the spirit of Dartmoor’s ancient forest and the brittle body of death. Written and directed by Anna Kushnerova, this 20-minute film unfolds through the voices and movements of earthly folk, spectral guardians, and shape-shifters, choreographed by lichen, granite, and grief.
Emerging from moss-wrapped groves and the fungal breathing of the moor, the story tells of a Bird that eats Human forms. Of coffin roads veined through fern valleys. Of ancestors carried in salt. It is a tale received through place, composted through body, and spoken in the tongue of rot and ritual.
The film traverses death not as an end, but as sanctuary—a porous zone of shapelessness where we dissolve into canopy, string-of-sausages lichen, and witches’ whiskers. Through decomposition, we trespass the human, reclaiming the kinship between body and cosmos, spirit and soil.
Filmed with the participation of local artists and the ancient earths of Dartmoor.
Written and Directed: Anna Kushnerova
Cinematography: Raúl Bartolomé, Ben Jeans Houghton
Earthly Folk: Hilary Kneale, Miguel Valentini, Sofia Kovarich, Juta Eaton, Dan Faberoff, Lies Van Hee, Bodhi, Tim Russell
The Corpse: Elise Gettliffe
Guardians of the Afterworld: Ken Mai, Romain Brau, Jamus Wood, David Lautier, Jasper Salomonsz, Miguel Valentini
Sycamore Guardian: Tim Russell
Music Composition: Daan Geysen
Vocal Recording: Inbetween Sounds Studio
Vocals: Ric Hollingbery
Narration: Fionn Davies Cox
On-set Recording: Anastasia Freygang
On-set Assistance: Becca Parkinson, Orjana Rudeloff
Costume Design: Anna Kushnerova
Costume Assistance: Lena Marien
Woven Coffin: Eamonn Harnett
Edit: Anna Kushnerova
Colour Grading: Raúl Bartolomé
MORE ON THE POETICS OF DEATH
Voices for Biological Decomposition and the Spilling of the Spirit into the Afterworld