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Hold Still

The arrival of charismatic Achik drives the Ashcroft couple into a game of obsession and desire.

synopsis

In Victorian England, Charles and Pearl Ashcroft display stolen artifacts from South American indigenous tribes in their cabinet of curiosities, selling the sacred for profit. Into this world steps Achik, a man first paraded as a “living artifact”. But his beauty unsettles the order: Pearl, starved for touch, is consumed with longing, while Charles, rigid and repressed, oscillates between control and forbidden desire. Their household becomes a theatre of obsession, where meals, games, and rituals turn erotic, each glance and command blurring dominance and submission. Achik, observing their hunger, learns to wield it – seducing their desires, turning their gaze back upon them, and destabilising their marriage. Through intimacy he reclaims power, plotting to return home with both their secrets and the treasures once stolen from his people.

Director’statement

“Everything in the world is about sex, except sex – sex is about power.” – Oscar Wilde This captures the heart of Hold Still, a story where desire, domination, and the colonial gaze entwine. Inspired by the real-life event of the Selk’nam people taken from Tierra del Fuego to England, the film reimagines their history through a psychosexual lens. Structured around Victorian parlour games, Hold Still mirrors its own form: a game of who is watching whom, with the audience cast as scientist, voyeur, participant. At its core lies the tension between science and mysticism, control and wonder. With a soundscape that amplifies longing for the ‘other’ and visuals that evoke both Victorian spectacle and cosmic awe, Hold Still transforms the period film into something sensory and unsettling.

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