Director of Photography: Jon Felix
Producer / Director: Navin Thapar
Starring: Moshe Ivgi and Amir Korangy
Location: London
Format: Super-16mm
Awards: British Academy award nominee

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Against the continuing backdrop of imprisonment
and ill-treatment of political prisoners
BREATH OF LIFE depicts the emotional bind
forged between six prisoners of conscience who

find themselves sharing the same cell. The film focuses upon their obsession with stealing cigarettes from the guards. Where there is no escape, no compassion, no humanity, the most mundane of aspirations can bring back hope.

My work over the years experimenting with ways of producing startling and unusual effects – often ‘in-camera’ - paid off on BREATH OF LIFE. Most of the film was set in a prison cell as the occupants remember their former lives before they were arrested. The challenge was to transform their environment into their memories – to make the cell fade away. I worked out a number of ways to make the walls and ceiling of the cell literally dissolve – in-camera - revealing a starry sky. This was done using mirrors and a fibre optic lighting system to create a starry sky.