Polia & Blastema, E. Elias Merhige's first foray into opera, is a gnostic creation myth told through a visual tapestry which journeys into immensely desolate hellscapes of the inorganic as organic folding back onto itself in ever spiraling, fractally superimposing cataclysms of wormhole network (be)longing.

"Bold. There is no one left exploring new imagery and new sound so radically."
Werner Herzog

"Mindblowingly beautiful. Pure seeing and wonder … otherworldiness magic."
Willem Dafoe

" … Like the long shriek of nature."
Tom Gunning

" … my brain went in a thousand directions, blasted by its cosmic radiations."
François Girard

"Few films instill such a sense of magic and terror …"
Daniel Bird

Aesthetically tempered by aspects of decay, rot, earth, and the meta-myth structure of human cognition, the multi-leveled world of Polia & Blastema is informed by the visual imagination of David Wexler, a celebrated visual artist who has been the mastermind behind the live performances of Flying Lotus, The Weeknd, and The Glitch Mob, among many other artists. It is also informed by Viennese Actionism as much as it is by Eugene Thacker’s notions of “the world without us”, of supernatural horror and dissolution, expressed in the separation and (re)union of two entities who in the end feast on one another in ritualistic ecstasy

Starring Nina McNeely and Jasmine Albuquerque and featuring vocalists Micaela Tobin and Sharon Chohi Kim, Polia & Blastema is a unique cinematic journey into the cosmic.





Presented by
Century Guild Creative
Strangeloop Studios
The Teaching Machine

Polia & Blastema
a cosmic opera

Featuring
Nina McNeely
Jasmine Albuquerque

Libretto & Direction
E. Elias Merhige

Creative Direction & Visual Effects Supervisor
David Wexler

Composer & Sound Design
Gavin Gamboa

Cinematography
Jake Bloch

Vocalists
Micaela Tobin
Sharon Chohi Kim

Executive Producer
Thomas Negovan

Associate Producers
Ian Simon

Production Coordinator
Nick Maresh

Animation & Compositing
Alec Maassen
Aron Johnson
Nic Juister