Heritage ✯ Culture ✯ Films ✯ Storytelling
WORLD
MONUMENTS
FUND
International heritage organisation World Monuments Fund commissioned my studio, Aetia, to direct & produce a series of 6 short documentaries.
Together we told the story of 3 iconic monuments and the incredibly work being done to preserve them - from Angkor Wat to the gardens of Versailles - through the lens of the people who love them. We interviewed those who grew up beside, care for, and work on these sites day to day, to paint an intimate portrait of each place and its history through its closest stakeholders.
This work helped drive a wider shift away from past approaches to storytelling with an academical focus, towards emotionally potent and meaningful personal stories. The films have allowed audiences to connect with the sites through stories of human resilience and communities’ drive to preserve culture amidst war, conflict and environmental crisis, and reached younger generations and potential future donors.
WATCH
✯ Potager du Roi, Versailles
✯ Mosul Cultural Museum, Iraq
✯ Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Capturing interviews with the last generation to recall the state of Angkor Wat during the wars and genocide of the 20th century, we told the story of Cambodia’s famous Angkor Wat temple through the active religious and economic significance of the site to a local community in recovery.
ANGKOR WAT, CAMBODIA
APPROACH
Moving away from fine-grain academic details, I proposed we focus instead on more widely interesting stories of the living culture that continues at Angkor Wat today: the people who tend to them, and the resilience of communities healing post-conflict through culture.
We captured Buddhist rituals, social histories, personal memories and the progress made over 3 decades of work on the project’s 30th anniversary. WMF had a huge repository of archival images from decades ago that visualised the histories, phases of work and people behind their heritage sites. We reworked these assets before capturing new ones, to paint a fuller picture of these cultural places before, during and after their restoration, and illustrate the visible progress made.
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CREDITS
Director - Issabella Orlando
DOP - Etienne Boisson
Production Company - Aetia Studio
Editor & Colourist - Joseph Rubio
Music - poetri
HOW WE DID IT
Interviewed elderly voices on the ground to capture their memories and translate their accounts into English for the first time
Resurfaced archival materials and unused existing photos & videos and repurposed them as design materials and social media content
Drew up evergreen briefing materials for visual direction, video capture, copywriting and creative strategy have been created to allow internal comms teams to create powerful, consistent content in years to come
Through interviews with artists, students, architects and cultural preservationists, we told the story of Mosul and its recent years of cultural revival, as well as the destruction and recovery of its beloved Cultural Museum.
MOSUL CULTURAL MUSEUM,IRAQ
APPROACH
After it was significantly damaged in an attack by ISIS in 2015, Mosul Cultural Museum is still in recovery. WMF has been actively involved in restoring the museum and its programmes; my assignment was to tell the story of this work in a way that would resonate with both a local and international community.
During the research process, all I found online were accounts of the museum’s destruction, and little more than a brief introduction about its life before. I wanted to know more about the museum’s story apart from the attack; how creatives and culture were responding 8 years later, and what the museum represented today.
I proposed the films look beyond the devastating attack, and connect the project to its inspiring wider contexts - the incredible Iraqi Modernist movement of the 70s, and the strengthening cultural pulse in liberated city of Mosul today.
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CREDITS
Director - Issabella Orlando
Production Companies - Aetia Studio & Qaf Lab
Editor - Issabella Orlando
Music - poetri
How we did it:
Gathered interviews with artists, heritage professionals, architects, and photographers to share creatives’ and cultural professionals’ lens on Mosul’s destruction and liberation
Scrubbed hours of existing footage and archival materials to tell the story with minimal need for additional filming
Focused on the museum’s central position as a cultural hub and active venue for cultural revival in post-liberated Mosul
Researched the museum’s architect, Mohamed Makiya, and his contemporaries, and created social media content that tells the story of a creative movement spanning art and architecture in Iraq
Incorporated input from students and young people whose cultural identity is forming post-occupation, through interactions with the museum and its collection
Telling the story of the gardens of Versailles, their histories, and the innovative ways WMF and École nationale supérieure de paysage are working together to ensure this magical place remains resilient in the face of a changing climate.
POTAGER DU ROI, VERSAILLES
WMF’s work at Versailles is not to be confused with the gold-roofed Chateau of the famed royals. Our assignment was to provide a lesser known aspect of the famous palace, something much more grounded. In the shadow of the magnificent Cathédrale Saint Louis lies a 9 hectare oasis of fruit trees, flowerbeds, greenhouses and vegetable gardens established by none other than Louis XIV - enter Le Potager du Roi.
We shed light on the gardens’ quirky and intersectional histories through touchpoints that audiences might recognise: Louis XIV’s establishment of it to cater to his lavish tastes, and its lasting impact on French cuisine today.
We were also assigned to cover the impact that climate change is having on the gardens, for which I went straight to the heart of the action: gardeners, the researchers, the professionals who are helping this incredible little cradle of nature and culture to adapt, and sharing it with the public.
CREDITS
Director & DOP - Issabella Orlando
Production Company - Aetia Studio
Assistant Camera - Nora Jaccaud
Editor - Issabella Orlando
Colourist - Conor Tychowski
Music - Ben McElroy
Stills Photographer - Nora Jaccaud
