ORTOLAN

Short film | 24 minutes 41 seconds | Directed by Tracy Mathewson

ORTOLAN is a genre-bending dark comedy and psychological thriller exploring the fragility of memory, buried trauma, food and psychedelics. Working with writer, actor and producer Kate Winter, Tracy Mathewson developed a cinematic approach to representing childhood sexual trauma without relying on literal reenactment. Sound becomes central to this exploration, communicating the emotional experience of traumatic memory rather than reproducing the experience itself. 

The film transforms familiar sounds into unsettling expressions of a character’s inner world. Amplified chewing, crunching and slurping—sounds that might conventionally support comedy—combine with chiaroscuro lighting to create psychological unease. Elsewhere, cooking sounds and the flapping of birds’ wings are detached from their expected sources and used to convey emotional states. In a scene involving the recollection of abuse, the sounds of a chicken breast being squeezed and a carrot being grated accompany an image of a hand on a thigh. By moving everyday sounds beyond their literal relationship to the image, ORTOLAN develops a sonic language occupying a liminal space between soundtrack and score. 

A nine-month post-production process brought together iterative feedback from the director, writer-performer, producer, editor and sound team. The final Dolby 5.1 surround-sound mix was tested in different screening environments. The film’s international festival run included awards for Best Proof of Concept at Brighton Rocks and Best Mise-en-scène at Hastings Rocks, alongside a nomination for Best British Short Film at the British Short Film Awards. It was also featured on Directors Notes.