Watching Burn Ceremony feels less like viewing a film and more like being pulled into a trance. It’s definitely not something you watch casually. It demands attention - focus - concentration. Alexander Girav’s experimental short is hypnotic and deliberate, offering no clear narrative but instead crafting an experience rooted in sensation and atmosphere.
The film centers on an unsanctioned nighttime observation of an unknown organization’s largest oil refinery - a massive structure that processes over 400,000 barrels of crude oil a day. But rather than document it in a conventional way, Burn Ceremony engages us kinetically, demanding all of our attention. From a distance, we watch as the refinery pulses alive into the dark: towers glowing with fire, fog swirling through steel frameworks, lights flashing almost as if at the scene of a rave.
Girav’s direction gives the imagery a strong architectural presence. Every frame is meticulously composed, almost photographic in how it captures space and light. The camera rarely moves, which gives the viewer time to absorb and examine - to notice how shadows stretch, how steam curls, how flames twitch at the edge of containment. The result is a kind of industrial sublime: terrifying, yes, but strangely beautiful.
What really held me in place was the sound design. Loraine James, known for her experimental work in the UK club scene, composed a soundscape that’s as hypnotic as the visuals. Her music doesn’t just sit underneath the images - it emphasizes the energy behind them. Sometimes that means the music is low and meditative, like a lullaby. Sometimes it means that the music is sharp and percussive, mimicking how the refinery feels like a living, throbbing organism. At times, I wasn’t sure whether I was hearing the site itself or a manipulated version of it. The effect is otherworldly.
The refinery is violent, emitting fire that lights up the sky in the dark, bathing everything in a reddish-orange light. It is the only source of movement in all of the shots throughout the short. It demands your attention through its sheer presence - and the thought of the amount of energy that goes into fueling it and keeping it alive can’t help but take up the space inside your head. It’s like a mythical monster - like seeing a huge, silver and red dragon in the distance. It’s huge, it’s hulking, it’s terrifying yet astonishing.
That tension - between dread and awe - is the heart of Burn Ceremony. There’s no overt commentary about industry or climate or capitalism, yet those themes hover in the background like smoke. Instead of telling us what to think, the film simply invites us to witness. And that, I think, is what makes it so affecting. Without words, we see the refinery depicted as a symbol of power, destruction, and progress - all wrapped into one glowing, breathing machine.
Afterwards, I kept thinking about the contradictions the film made me feel - admiration for something so destructive, and fear of something so mesmerizing. Burn Ceremony stays with you, not just visually but viscerally. It makes you consider scale, infrastructure, and our dependence on systems we rarely see in this kind of stark, exposed way.
Overall, this short film is truly an experience - one that is finessed and curated especially for the viewer. It might seem inappropriate to say that I found it fun to watch, but I did. It offered me something new that I don’t see very often, and executed it in a way that shows off both the filmmaker and the sound designer’s talented artistry. It made me want to see more from both artists, especially when it comes to longer-form projects. I can’t wait to see what Girav and James do next.
Burn Ceremony screens as part of the Shorts Program on Friday, June 6 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ. There will be a Q+A session with the attending directors after the in-person screening. Get more info here.
The 30th annual New Jersey International Film Festival will be taking place between May 30-June 13, 2025. The Festival will be a hybrid one as we will be presenting it online as well as doing select in-person screenings at Rutgers University. All the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. VOD start times are at 12 Midnight Eastern USA. Each General Admission Ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person when both are offered. Plus, we are very proud to announce that acclaimed singer-songwriter Mike Kovacs will be doing an audio-visual concert on Friday, June 13 at 7PM! The in-person screenings and the Mike Kovacs concert will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 5PM or 7PM on their show date. General Admission Ticket=$15 Per Program; Festival All Access Pass=$120; In-Person Only Student Ticket=$10 Per Program.
For more info go here: https://2025newjerseyinternationalfilmfestival.eventive.org/welcome
