Watch free video Darkest Matter by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

This nanofilm came about when a very close friend of the animator, who works in the sciences, tried to explain dark matter to her.

"I realized that this way of talking about the unexpected weight of the universe could just as well apply to the struggle with mental heaviness. I struggled with depression in the past and many of my friends have done the same. Sick people share hopes and plans with the “healthy.” And for many of them the inability to follow through on those plans became the most crippling part of their illness. I hoped scientific language could provide an alternate narrative of depression that was both precise and, if you’ll excuse the pun, universal."