Jordan Chandler, Nepenthe
UK
Director: Jordan Chandler
Director of Photography: Cordelia Lawler
Choreographer: Ekleido
Performers: Faye Stoeser & Hannah Ekholm
Musician: Floating Points
About Nepenthe
Nepenthe is a surreal dance film exploring how movement can reclaim memory. Told entirely through dance, the film follows two women drifting through memories frozen in time as they attempt to rewrite the emotional past from a place of empowerment. Moving between suspended domestic worlds, dreamlike forests and underground dance spaces, their journey transforms painful memories into spaces of connection, freedom and expression. Inspired by the mythical Greek remedy said to soften sorrow, Nepenthe explores dance as survival, release and reinvention, tracing how female friendship and chosen family can help reshape the stories that once defined us.
This film was commissioned and produced by Sadler's Wells Digital Stage & Studio, London.
About Jordan Chandler
Jordan Chandler is a British filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist often exploring themes of identity, trauma, and female resistance. Her films are known for their raw, stylised energy, balancing grit with surreal beauty, protest with poetry. A graduate of Central Saint Martins and the National Film and Television School, Jordan’s background in performance art informs her immersive, emotionally charged narratives. Her short Brutal won the Verna Award from MPSE, Premiered on Director’s Notes, was nominated for Best Cinematography by the BSC, and screened at Raindance, NY Indie Shorts, and St Andrews, where it won the Hideo Nishizaki Award. Her dance film SPLICE was a NOWNESS Pick and shortlisted at Berlin Fashion Film Festival for multiple awards and her short Dada Dark was nominated for Best UK Short at Raindance. Jordan is currently in development for her debut feature and is represented by Matthew Bates at Sayle Screen.