The Spring of Sorrow

Trapped in the midst of a water shortage, Isabelle tells her younger sister Lily a fairytale that explains how this tragedy came to be.

Film Signature Image
Series
FUTURESTATES
Premiere Date
March 28, 2011
Length
12 minutes
Funding Initiative
Short-Form Series and Special Projects
Director

Suzi Yoonessi

Director and writer Suzi Yoonessi’s internationally award-winning first feature film Dear Lemon Lima, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival where it received an award for Outstanding Performance. Yoonessi received a Jerome Foundation Grant for Vern (2004), which she wrote, directed, and produced. Vern was a finalist for the Roy W. Dean… Show more Foundation Grant and is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Yoonessi’s previous short film No Shoulder premiered at the Palm Beach International Shorts Film Festival. Show less

Producer

Jonako Donley

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The Film

Sisters Lily and Isabelle live a nomadic life, displaced by global warming. Trapped in the desert in the midst of a water shortage, Isabelle offers hope to her younger sister by telling a whimsical fairytale that allegorically explains how this tragic world came to be. When Isabelle falls ill, Lily embarks on an imaginative journey in a magical paper cut-out forest to find the mythical Spring of Sorrow, an everlasting spring of fresh water. Along the way, she forges a friendship with an eccentric florist, creates flowers and animals, and learns a valuable lesson about environmental responsibility.

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