Premiere: Go down the rabbit hole with Kyoto Skies and their new video for Beside Me

Sydney electronic outfit Kyoto Skies have linked up with Studio Borges for the release of a new music video collaboration for the group's single, Beside Me, in what ends up being a twisted take on Alice In Wonderland. Referencing the fashion photography of the likes of Annie Leibovitz and Helmut Newtown, the clip is a surreal trip down the rabbit hole, raw and at times disconcerting. For us to continue to try and describe it would be a bit of a disservice we feel, so instead why not check it out for yourself below, along with an interview with the video's writer/director/producer, Natalia Cartney.

What inspired you to make this music video?

I was flipping through photography with one of my friends and came across this fashion shoot that Annie Leibovitz did for Vogue that was inspired by Alice In Wonderland. First of all, Alice is obviously on the cusp of adulthood here. She pouts, she's boisterous. She's stuck in a toy house, but all grown up and the photos have an element of sexuality to them. Which is funny, because it's Alice, she's usually young, and innocent with this bow in her hair.

Anyway, it got me thinking, wouldn't it be fun to do a movie like this. But as a young director, you're thinking much smaller budgets and what's possible, and that's how it became a music video.

In a word, what's this video clip about?

Female sexuality. I guess, the exploration of it. I didn't necessarily write it like that, but when I look back at it, that's what came out.

You're not always conscious of what you write?

Exactly. I mean, that's terrifying on some level. But I confessed to a friend that maybe I was writing out of my subconscious and their response was, "always write out of your subconscious". Which I took to mean that we're inevitably only aware of a small proportion
of what's going on, and if we tap into what we're thinking underneath, that's a different kind of interesting.

The clip has a really diverse cast, is that important to you?

It was exciting when I realised we had someone born on each continent on set. Unless you count North America as a separate continent, but we did cast a New Yorker at one stage. I find the word diverse a little strange. I mean, what is diverse? But definitely, sometimes I
think what gets shown on television is not at all representative of what my friends look like.

[Studio Borges] is tiny. We produce out of pubs. Sometimes I almost think we forget about social media. But it's dedicated to the ideal. The writer/director vision. Equality and representation. A deeper kind of film making. 

What's coming up for you?

I'm finishing up a surrealist short film shot in Spain. There's a lobster telephone, and it's all a bit experimental, but I can't say anymore.

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