MORE LIKE A RIVER 2021 | WATCH

More Like A River reflects on the fragile and disorienting realities of personal transformation. Developed in 2020 amid the global reckoning sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement, the film traces growth, grief and self-redefinition as cyclical and entangled processes. Elemental imagery suggests rather than illustrates, forming an impressionistic atmosphere where motion and stillness coexist. The central figure looks toward the sky, evoking speculative Black futures shaped after 2020, while dissolving landscapes subtly recall Magritte’s visual language, where concealment and atmosphere shape presence and absence alike.

The film received the 2022 Wyndham Art Prize and has been presented at Museums Victoria (2022), Insitu Dandenong Light Festival (2022) and Centre for Projection Art (2022). A still from the film is held in the Villa Lena private collection, Tuscany.

Created on Bunurong country. Directed by Lilah Benetti, featuring Pookie, with cinematography and edit by Sam Biddle.