At the edge of Shirahama, a coastal tourist town in Japan, an ageing scientist works to unlock the biological secret of immortality held in the life cycle of a tiny jellyfish. At a temple in Kyoto, a Zen priest contemplates the metaphysical immortality held within a single breath.

This film is in the Documentary Short Competition.

MEET THE FILMMAKER: SPENCER MACDONALD

The son of an oil painter and an architect, Spencer has been steeped in the conceptual and functional from an early age. His interest in film began while living with eighteen Buddhist nuns in a remote section of the Indian Himalayas, known as Zanskar. In windowless kitchens, ancient dried-up riverbeds, and mountains high above the tree line, he learned the manual settings on my point-and-shoot camera and began to capture snippets of life. Since then he has had the privilege of working on films in eleven countries, and has had work shown in film festivals across the world and featured online in many of the world’s largest media outlets, including National Geographic, The Atlantic, and NOWNESS.