Genres: Experimental, Experiential Cinema, Guided Yoga Meditation.
Performed by: Julia Llanos
Vocal performance by: Erin Audley
Tadasana is an intimate short film that unfolds in the form of a guided yoga meditation. The narrator instructs the viewer through the foundational yoga pose, Tadasana (Mountain Pose), while simultaneously delving into themes of autonomy, existence, perception and disconnection.
The film’s meditative guidance is contrasted with invasive interjections, as the narrator questions the value of their instructions and their perception of the world around them. The repetitive nature of the film reflects the cyclical, intrusive thoughts associated with anxiety disorders, while the focus on body awareness taps into the filmmaker’s experiences with depersonalization-derealization disorder, where both internal and external perceptions become foreign, distant, and disconnected from the self.
As the viewer follows the cues of breath, posture, and balance, the narrator repeatedly reminds them of mortality. This focus introduces a deep anxiety about existence, tapping into the filmmaker’s fears surrounding control, autonomy, and inevitability. The body, rather than a source of strength, becomes a liability, fragile and fallible, a vessel constantly at the brink of breakdown.
The film concludes with an assertion of the unavoidable truth: We all die. The film’s final fade to black represents the inescapable end, and the entire experience becomes a meditation not just on posture, but on the ephemeral nature of life, the struggle for balance, and the disorienting feeling of being detached from both the body and the world.
Tadasana is both a guided meditation and a journey into the mind’s anxious terrain, where the body becomes both a source of grounding and disconnection, and every breath is a reminder of life’s fragility.
