Cielo, dir. Alison McAlpine, Canada / Chile 2018, 78 min.

Alison McAlpine roots are in poetry, which she began writing as a teenager, publishing in her early twenties. At a writing workshop in Banff the novelist Alistair MacLeod described her work as film poetry. Soon she discovered theatre in Ireland, writing highly visual poetic monologues which were performed in Dublin. In Canada, Alison formed a theatre company and wrote and directed plays that were presented at festivals in Canada, Ireland and France. She was encouraged towards cinema and received a commission to write a TV Opera based on a play she had written. Her mid-length film Second Sight (2008) was screened at more than 35 international film festivals. Cielo is Alison’s first feature film.