Makers: Ian Hugo
Assisted by Anaïs Nin and Len Lye
Original format: 16mm sound film 1.37:1
Featuring Anaïs Nin
Electronic music: Louis and Bebe Barron

"I remember my first birth in water," reads Anaïs Nin in her husband Ian Hugo's aquatic fantasy formed of "hieroglyphs of a language in which our unconscious is trying to convey important, urgent messages." According to poetess' Marianne Moore's appraisal, the mix of charged language and stunning abstract imagery and music moves the viewer towards the lost continent within ourselves." -Bruce Posner

Banker and artist Ian Hugo (1898-1985) was born Hugh Parker Guiler in Boston, and his childhood was spent in Puerto Rico, a "tropical paradise" the memory of which stayed with him and surfaces in both his engravings and films. In 1923 he met and married author Anaïs Nin. He assumed the nom de plume Ian Hugo to protect his artistic identity from the banking world. His filmmaking began in response to his interests in motion. A fictionalized portrait of Hugo appears in Philip Kaufman's 1990 film, Henry & June. -Bruce Posner