Creature

Creature is a dance film directed by Asif Kapadia from an original concept and choreography by Akram Khan. It grew out of English National Ballet's 2021 stage production and was made as a collaboration between Khan, Kapadia and English National Ballet, produced by Uzma Hasan of Little House Productions.

Inspired by Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck, the film is set in a dilapidated former Arctic research station. It tells the story of an outsider's search for belonging, the hunger of the powerful, and the hope that survives through human connection and compassion. ENB dancers Jeffrey Cirio, Erina Takahashi and Stina Quagebeur play the leading roles.

The project began during lockdown. Kapadia had never been to the ballet, but after Khan told him about the production he sat on the floor of a rehearsal room on the Isle of Dogs and watched the dancers work. At a time when he had not seen a film or a live performance in months, he found its themes of authoritarian control and environmental collapse close to the research he was doing for his later film 2073.

Coming to dance as an outsider, Kapadia chose to film it differently from a conventional recorded performance. The film was shot in ten days and edited remotely in three weeks, with an editor working from Paris whom he never met in person. He has described it as a freeing experience: someone else had created the dance, and his job was to interpret it on screen.

Creature premiered on 15 October 2022 and was released in UK cinemas on 24 February 2023. It is available to watch on the BFI website.