Tagline: Where the spiral calls, the crystal hums… and dance ignites the Sea of Fire.
•12:30 • 4K DCI • 24fps • Hybrid Dance / Experimental • Greece/India/USA
Official trailer
Logline
Drawn by a mystical spiral, the Daughter of the Moon leaves space behind and journeys through the
Sea of Fire, the ocean’s depths, and a crystal cave, toward a realm where everything becomes
music.
Synopsis
The Daughter of the Moon leaves her celestial home, young and anxious, seeking the unknown. Drawn by a mystical spiral at the Sea of Fire, she embarks on a journey to the bottom of the ocean, entering a crystal cave. Guided by sounds and images, she crosses into a mystical land where everything becomes music. An experimental hybrid dance music short film that weaves live-action performance into animated worlds.
Live action performance woven into surreal animated worlds.
Director’s Statement
Sea of Fire is a 12-minute experimental dance music hybrid film, an inner passage from the celestial to the elemental, toward uncertainty, surrender, and rebirth. The story follows the Daughter of the Moon, young, anxious, and drawn toward the unknown, as she leaves her celestial home in space and follows a mystical spiral into the Sea of Fire. Her journey begins in space: she travels toward the Sea of Fire, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, enters a crystal cave, and finally crosses into a “mystical land” where everything becomes music.
After four years of studying Indian classical music in India, I returned to Greece and spent time on a remote island. That is where the inspiration for Sea of Fire began to take shape.
At the foundation of this film is a question that feels both ancient and contemporary: what do we do with the restlessness of the heart, and with the search for the unknown, outer and inner? The film’s lyrics draw from a ghazal by Hafez of Shiraz, a poet who names the limits of distraction and the illusions that bewitch us. In that poem I found the emotional spine of the Daughter of the Moon: desire as motion, anxiety as gravity, and transcendence as a change in perception.
I approached Sea of Fire as a dance-music art poem rather than a conventional narrative. Choreography becomes the film’s voice, the body speaks where dialogue would flatten mystery. Music becomes a universal language: it tells us where we are, what the air feels like, and what kind of world we have entered. The film’s animated worlds are not meant to imitate reality, but to visualize interior states, dreamlike spaces where longing, joy, serenity, and wonder can coexist.
The film was made through cross-cultural collaboration among artists from Greece, Pakistan, India, Iran, and the USA. That collaboration is not a message I tried to force: it’s simply the reality of how we worked, as artists without borders. The musical world blends Indian and Persian classical elements, mythic archetypes, Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance, and Urdu-language vocals shaped around Hafez’s poetry, creating a shared imaginary space that belongs to no single culture and, at the same time, honors each one. With acclaimed Pakistani dancer and choreographer Suhaee Abro embodying the Daughter of the Moon, the film’s emotional arc is carried through movement: innocence meeting the unknown, the unknown becoming initiation. Our cinematographer, Konstantinos Koukoulis, helped me shape the look of that performance inside the animated worlds.
In the process, I began to realize that Sea of Fire had, almost unintentionally, become part of an informal trilogy of dance films. After exploring a more raw, experimental video-art language in my previous two works, Whirling Desert and Dancing with the Unknown, this film arrived as the natural, more mature outcome of a long inner search.
While finishing the post-production, Sea of Fire made me realize a personal truth about art itself: how it can become prophetic without trying, and how it can preserve what was real even after life changes shape. The film does not promise answers. It offers a passage: through flame, through ash, through crystal dust, through stardust, through rebirth, into a place where the heart can finally be heard. For me, Sea of Fire is an imprint.
Credits
Written, Directed & Produced: Iasonas Psarakis
Choreography & Performance: Suhaee Abro
Cinematography: Konstantinos Koukoulis, Susanta Adhikary, Stratis Anastasiou
Production Design / Motion Art / Art Direction: Rija Yousuf
Editing / VFX / Color: Chris Papametis
Sound Design & Music Production: Nikolas Gkinis
Music: Iasi Ensemble (Original Music: Iasonas Psarakis)
Cast: Suhaee Abro, Rituparna Banerjee, Iasonas Psarakis, Nikolas Gkinis, Ricky Chakraborty
Associate Producers: Metamorphosis NPO | Friends of HiHiRi PiPiRi
In collaboration with HiHiRi PiPiRi Transcultural Creative Network
Key Artists
Iasonas Psarakis — Director | Producer | Music Composer | Concept Artist | Scriptwriter
Iasonas Psarakis is a a multi-award-winning Greek-born composer, filmmaker, and multi-instrumentalist working across North Indian Classical, world, and experimental music film forms. A soloist on sitar and esraj, he is a GRAMMY® Voting Member of the Recording Academy and contributed as a session musician to the GRAMMY®-nominated album The Colors in My Mind (Best New Age, Ambient or Chant Album, 2026).
He holds a B.Mus. in Hindustani Classical Music (Sitar) from Sangit Bhavan, Visva-Bharati University (India), supported by scholarships including ICCR, and has studied with acclaimed teachers in the Ali Akbar Khan lineage and beyond. His work has been presented internationally across concerts, opera houses, site-specific performances, and film contexts.
As founder, composer, and arranger of the Iasi Ensemble, he released the ensemble’s debut album Astris (2023), featuring collaborations with musicians from India, the Middle East, and Greece. Astris received six Silver Medals at the Global Music Awards, won Best World Music at the Clouzine International Music Awards, charted on Ethnocloud and One World Music Radio, and appeared on the first-round ballot for the GRAMMY® Awards in Best Global Music Album.
His film and music projects have been awarded by festivals including the Thomas Edison Film Festival and Jaipur International Film Festival, and he continues collaborating internationally across dance, music, and moving image works.
IMDb: https://imdb.com/name/nm12460758/
Suhaee Abro – Choreographer | Performance
Suhaee Abro is an acclaimed Pakistani dancer and choreographer who brings a fusion of traditional and contemporary movement to Sea of Fire as the Moon’s Daughter. She began training at age seven in Indian classical dance (Bharatanatyam) and Pakistani folk forms, later refining her craft at Nuova Officina della Danza (N.O.D.) in Turin, Italy. Her performances and collaborations span Pakistan, India, China, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom across theatre, film, and television. Suhaee starred in My Pure Land, the UK’s official submission to the 90th Academy Awards®. She also teaches dance workshops centered on healing and emotional expression through movement.
Full bio: https://iasiensemble.com/suhaeeabro-bio/
Konstantinos Koukoulis — Cinematographer
Konstantinos Koukoulis is the cinematographer of Sea of Fire. He has served as Cinematographer on projects including Human Flow (2017), The Rest (2019), and Vice (TV series, 2017). His credits also include work on international productions such as Bigger Than Us (2021) and The Invisible Fight (2023). In Sea of Fire, he shot the live-action dance performance and helped shape the film’s visual language.
Rija Yousuf — Production Design | Art Director | Motion Art | Concept Artist
Rija Yousuf serves as the production designer, art director, motion artist, and concept artist behind the visual aesthetics of Sea of Fire. With a keen eye for design and a profound understanding of visual storytelling, Rija brings the narrative to life through immersive and dynamic visuals.
Chris Papametis — Editor | VFX artist | Colorist
Chris Papametis is a Greek professional editor, VFX artist, and 3D animator with extensive experience in cinema, television, and theatre projects. A graduate of the University of Patras (Department of Theatre Studies) and the SAE Athens Institute (Department of 3D & Interactive Animation), Chris has honed his skills in blending artistic vision with technical precision. In Sea of Fire, Christos brings his expertise as an editor, colorist, and VFX artist.
Full bio: https://iasiensemble.com/papametis/
Nikolas Gkinis — Music Producer | Sound Designer | Musician
Nikolas Gkinis is a music producer, composer, and media professional with extensive experience in radio, television, and advertising. He served as the project manager and supervisor for sound across all stadiums during the ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games and was an adviser to the Chairman of ERT (Greek National Radio-TV) from 2003 to 2005.
As a multi-instrumentalist, Gkinis plays guitar, bass, synth, piano, and various traditional Greek and Middle Eastern instruments. His original compositions span media, cinema, theater, and dance, including the score for Nikos Koundouros’ film Photographers.
Full bio: https://iasiensemble.com/nikolas-gkinis/
Additional collaborators
Specs
- Runtime: 12:30
- Format: 4K DCI (4096×2160)
- Frame Rate: 24 fps
- Aspect Ratio: 1.90:1
- Country of Origin: Greece / India / USA
- Language: Non verbal (dance) + Urdu language vocals
- Subtitles: English / Greek / French (Urdu vocals)
- Sound: Stereo, 48 kHz (24-bit master)
- Screening formats available: ProRes 422HQ / H.264 screener / DCP available upon request
Festivals & Status
- Festival submissions: in progress (2026)
- Premiere status: Unscreened / World Premiere available
- IMDb page
Iasi Ensemble 