Tarry not, O cloud is the second film in my ongoing series exploring the enduring presence of natural elements. It follows my silent film, A History of the Wind.

My main inspiration is Kalidasa's classical Sanskrit poem Meghaduta (The Cloud Messenger). At its heart, it’s a myth of exile: a nature spirit, separated from his beloved, urges a passing cloud to carry his message across the mountains to her; out of longing, he imagines the entire journey. The pilgrimage of imagination here is less about reaching a destination but the landscapes encountered along the way.

This rasa-infused imagination inspired me to make this film to propose a poetic relationship with the natural world. What if, the poetic perception of reality is closer to what actually is, than the calculating measuring one? In the two variations of love that is meeting and separation, cloud is the very image of longing. The cloud moves from country to city, from exile to return. It is both the message and the messenger.

Tarry not, O cloud is a process-led and deeply collaborative work. It is a dance film, a musical, a landscape poem, a cinema of paintings, a pure experience. The cloud, like cinema itself, is a vast wandering projection. It becomes language, objects, emotion, movement…the convergence of the natural and the supernatural.

2026 / 74 min / Canada, China / 16:9

Performance by Noriko Yamamoto, Alireza Keymanesh, Sabrina West, Sabrina Zhao, Karel Malkoun
Movement Director Qingyang Wang
Voice by Kota Fudauchi
Director of Photography Xin Liu
Edited by Jharol Mendoza
Original Music by Roberto Musci
Original Music by Estelle Schorpp
Acousmatic Sounds by Yuka Nagamatsu
Supervising Sound Design and Mixing by Mitchell Allen
Directed and Produced by Sabrina Zhao

Tarry not, O cloud is inspired by Kalidasa’s Sanskrit poem Meghaduta (The Cloud Messenger, 4th - 5th century CE) and Rick Jarow’s final publication, his study of the poem, The Cloud of Longing (2021).

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With the generous support of