EMIL FRIIS — 'Moving Images'
'Moving Images' is a testament to the human condition and things that bring us together as a species.
FILM SERIES
For Goodbyes
Composed by Emil Friis
Directed by Kevin Brooks
Featuring: Kevin Brooks Sr, Robert Johnson, Husain Razvi, Alya Suchana
“The music spoke to me in a way words never could - it felt like a bridge to the divine, a prayer without words. I got the idea for the visuals from becoming so heavily encompassed in the music that it felt like it was reaching me to a higher sense of self and what that actually means. The film is about how memory and faith intertwine - how the echoes of what we’ve lost don’t just vanish, but become part of the way we believe…in love, in God, and in something larger than ourselves.” - Kevin Brooks "Time has always interested me and the older I get it becomes ever more present. I look back at the world I grew up in or the world my parents or grandparents grew up in and those worlds, well they just don't exist anymore. It's this strangeness of time that feels so mesmerising yet incomprehensible. The fact that what is now in this moment will have to make way for what happens in the next. This endless motion of goodbyes, of leaving things and places, experiences and loved ones behind, only to exist in a memory inside you. I think that's what inspired me to write For Goodbyes. I guess you can view For Goodbyes as an ode to this universal condition all humans share, all species on this planet even." - Emil Friis
An Upward Motion
Composed by Emil Friis
Directed by Kevin Brooks
Starring - Rickey Flagg II
"I was inspired by An Upward Motion to craft a visual narrative that explores the intricate relationship between dance, movement, and the natural world. What captivates me about dance is its ability to take you on a journey — each movement drawing you deeper into a story, one that mirrors the rhythms of nature itself. There’s an undeniable beauty in how the body expresses emotions and elements that we often associate with the world around us: the fluidity of water, the power of thunder, the grounding of earth. As the piece draws to its conclusion, there’s this profound moment where the dancer, in all their vulnerability and strength, seeks to be seen—not just as an artist, but as a living embodiment of all these forces, harmonising the raw beauty of humanity with the timeless beauty of nature." – Kevin Brooks
Five Corners Of Blue
Composed by Emil Friis
Written & Directed by Shaun Hart
Starring: Ramsey Krull, Jennifer Michele De Winter, Chris Zylka
Produced by Jonathan Meyers
“When I first heard “Five Corners of Blue,” I was taken by its ability to evoke complex, often contradictory emotions. The piece carries a somber weight, yet it brims with hope—a poignant duality that took me to a love story destined to fail despite our greatest hopes. That emotional resonance is what makes Emil’s music such a natural conduit for visual storytelling. The desert felt like the ideal backdrop for that blend of raw intensity and technical prowess, a landscape that mirrors the stark beauty and emotional depth I’ve come to admire in Emil.” – Shaun Hart
Through Air
Composed by Emil Friis
Directed by Kevin Brooks
Featuring: Kevin Brooks Sr, Robert Johnson, Husain Razvi, Alya Suchana
"When I first heard 'Through Air', I was struck by the weightlessness, the wonder, and the quiet emotion it carried. It brought to mind the sensation of drifting freely, unbound by gravity or time. We often associate moving through air with the numbed distance of an airplane seat - fast, high, disconnected - where you struggle to judge speed or distance. But the closest I’ve come to truly feeling that kind of suspended motion was hundreds of feet below the surface, during a submarine dive into the Cayman Trench. The visuals here may be underwater, but the experience - just like Emil’s music - felt like floating through air. Emil’s composition is impossible to hear without seeing images. It’s inherently cinematic. The breath of the flute, the hush of ambient textures, the aching patience of each Mellotron note... it all feels like memories unfolding in slow motion. There’s restraint in the way the track builds, but also a quiet bravery in its emotional reach. It doesn’t demand attention. It earns it. Much like exploring a place that was never trying to be found, its beauty isn’t performative. And that alone makes it worth experiencing. Emil has a gift for composing music that feels like it’s always been part of your story, even if you’ve only just heard it for the first time." – Jonathan Meyers Idabel Submarine Operator: Karl Stanley. Shot in the Caymen Trench, Roatan, Honduras.
Zero
Composed by Emil Friis
Written & Directed by Shaun Hart
Starring: Ramsey Krull, Jennifer Michele De Winter, Chris Zylka
Produced by Jonathan Meyers
"I was especially struck by the opening chords. It carried a haunting quality, almost like ambulance sirens wailing in the distance, drawing closer and closer. Urgent yet dreamlike. Somber, inevitable. From that sound grew the seed of the story: a doomed love triangle, where two men, criminals by trade, ensured their mutual destruction the moment they fell for the same woman." – Shaun Hart
Dancing
Composed by Emil Friis
Filmed & Directed by Morgan Jon Fox
Motion Graphics: William Tyler Woodward
"I grew up spending most of my time in third spaces: bookstores, arcades, cd stores, and of course, malls. These were places where friends and I spent endless hours walking around, exploring every corner, doing much else but endlessly talking until curfew required us to go home. My current-day self is heavily drawn to the nostalgia of the third space as it slowly drifts away, while we’re becoming further drawn into devices and in-home entertainment. The weirdest part about still longing for these sacred domains is that many of them still exist in beautiful decay. Their bones still stand as they wither and rot in an awful abandon as if they were dinosaurs stopped dead in their tracks. Their remains, still accessible, simultaneously filled with the post-mortem wonder and eeriness of faded memories glitching through time. One of my favorite things to do is find and explore these spaces before they are demolished, as if showing up and walking the long liminal corridors of dead malls will take me back in time and somehow allow me to breathe new life into their former glory. Emil’s music has always drenched my brain in the euphoric feeling of nostalgia. His track, Dancing, specifically led me to find this space and create these images, thinking about memories and how they dance effortlessly through time, dropping us into places we once cherished. Places once the epicenter of human connection and congregation, now ghosts, standing merely as proof they once existed." – Morgan Jon Fox
ABOUT 'MOVING IMAGES'
Conceived as both an album and an evolving visual project, ‘Moving Images’ is Emil Friis' meditation on the subtle forces that shape the human spirit.
Exploring the deep connections between sound and imagery—where boundaries blur between classical music and cinematic storytelling—Friis has composed an intricate tapestry of textures and emotions to create a layered sound world. Despite their brevity, the compositions resonate with a poignant emotional intensity.
Friis invited filmmakers to create short films in response to each track—creating a dialogue between sound and vision—to explore how music and film interrelate to provoke our internal narratives through what we see and what we hear. We are prompted to consider how, and why, our own internal imagery is shaped by the music.
