When Galaxies Collide / The Ultimate Question: 2 short films by Andres Hidalgo

Forget the music video. Say hello to the music-inspired short film :)

When I asked film director Andres Hidalgo to create visuals for my latest 2-track conceptual project “When Galaxies Collide / The Ultimate Question”, I didn’t have a precise idea of what I was looking for but I knew I didn’t want to shoot a typical music video. What I really wanted to do was to let the music and the themes that inspired it, inspire someone else to tell their own story.

I’ve been always fascinated by the idea that art can be seen as a constant transfer of creative energy from human to human, in the form of inspiration. The way our thoughts emerge while we listen to music, for example. Or the way a book or a movie might inspire us to write or report about it to a friend. Indeed, having a conversation too is a rather pure and basic form of creativity. Often, I feel inspired to make music after going concert or visiting an exhibition.

So when I got to know that Andres was currently visiting his family in his homeland Ecuador, I knew that we were onto something really special. Ecuador was — and still is, unfortunately — going through a tumultuous political situation, with violent street riots, weakened, corrupted institutions and a strict curfew at night.

We talked for hours about the themes that inspired my music. Themes like: the mystery of life and death, the eternal quest for meaning, the exploration of a sense of limit. It became soon clear that what we were looking for was unfolding right in front of Andres’ eyes. So he took his hand-held video camera on multiple expeditions to portrait what was going on around him. The result is a poignant exploration on the human condition, in the midst of a political and societal crisis in Ecuador.

I’m proud to share with you the result of this collaboration.

When Galaxies Collide is an investigation on the mystery of creation, as a result of human encounter. The encounter always results in something which is more that the sum of the parts. In this sense, the encounter is always an act of creation, because at the moment of impact, energy in some form is originated.

The Ultimate Question is an exploration of the quest of meaning. Life can be seen as a sequence of increasingly more complex, more difficult questions. We ask questions to proceed ahead in our search. Some of them get solved, some can only be held.