Find the press kit pdf here.

Experimental documentary short film, 11 minutes.

A new father visits the hometown of his mother in 1976, accompanied by his wife and baby. At the same time, the NASA Viking lander is sending the first images back to Earth from the surface of another planet. Using the father’s travel journal as a guide, and re-contextualizing archival footage and photographs, this film explores our yearning to bridge the gap: the gap between parents and children, between points in space and between the present and the past.

CREDITS:

A film by Tess Martin
Mars cinematography and audio-visual post-production by Matija Pekić
Animation assistant Marike Verbiest
Title design by Alice Saey

Travel journal written by Stephen Martin, read by Tess Martin, used by permission
8mm footage shot by Stephen Martin and Linda Medica Martin, used by permission

This project contains copyright-free archival video and audio from NASA and Creative Commons-licensed sounds from freesound.org

Filmed in Midlothian & Aberdeenshire, Scotland and Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Special thanks to:
Eunice Stephen, Charles West, Bill Masson
all the residents of Cairnbulg and Inverallochy, Aberdeenshire
the Hawthornden Literary Retreat, Midlothian
Stephen Martin, Linda Medica Martin, Beth Martin Quittman and Christina Stephen Martin

This film was supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and the City of Rotterdam

SCREENINGS:

International Animation Festival Soleil, Sozopol, Bulgaria, June 05-07, 2025
Stuttgarter Filmwinter Festival of Expanded Media, Stuttgart, Germany, January 15-22, 2025
KLEX, Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival, Malaysia, Nov 30, 2024
Yellowstone International Film Festival, Noida, India, Nov 15-20, 2024
Science New Wave Film Festival, New York, USA, Oct 18-25, 2024
RPM Festival, Boston, MA, USA, Sept 26-Oct 26
Proyector Moving Image Festival, Madrid, Spain, Sept 11-22, 2024
Aricadoc International Documentary Film Festival, Arica, Chile, Aug 30-Sept 8, 2024
Snake Alley Festival of Film, Burlington, Iowa, USA, July 11-14, 2024
Kino Otok Isola Cinema, Izola, Slovenia, June 5-9, 2024
ONED Film Festival, Beijing, China, special screening with Traverse Video, June 10, 2024
Animafest Zagreb, World Panorama, Croatia, June 3-8, 2024
Experiments in Cinema, Albuquerque, NM, USA, April 23-27, 2024
Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Ohio, USA, April 8-15, 2024
AmDocs Film Festival, Palm Springs, CA, USA, March 21-25, 2024
Rencontres Internationales Traverse, experimental art festival, Toulouse, France, March 13-17, 2024 (installed in the Chapelle des Carmelites, March 13-31, 2024)
InScience International Science Film Festival, Nijmegen, Netherlands, March 12-17, 2024
International Short Film Week Regensburg, Germany, March 7-17, 2024
Festival Premiere: DOK Leipzig, International Competition Animated Film, Oct 2023

PRESS:

Sep 2024, ‘De-Reconstructing Memory and Documenting Times: Notes on the Margins of Animafest Zagreb 2024 Programs’ by Mikhail Gurevich, Zippy Frames.