About Series 1

EVERY TOMORROW

INVERSE is a series of short films that explore time and the human condition. Created by award-winning filmmaker Jack Jewers, each film takes an old poem and uses it as a prism through which to explore the world today. And when we say old, we mean really old. There isn’t a poem in the collection that wasn’t first written down thousands of years ago.

But far from being dry, remote echoes of a long-gone age, each poem chosen for the collection feels like it could have been written yesterday. And why shouldn’t they? People are people. Our dreams are nothing new. Our ancestors had the same hopes and fears that we do. And if we can understand this, perhaps it puts some of the problems of our world into perspective. People are people. Time is an illusion. And hope unites us all.

Jack Jewers, Director

“The genesis of the project began when I stumbled across this lovely line of poetry. And it just said ‘Girls in silk. Little fans in hand frolic with fireflies in flight.’ And I thought that was so beautiful, and I did this little double-take when I saw underneath the age. It said eighth century A.D., and it’s Chinese by a poet called Du Fu. That led me down a wonderful rabbit hole of ancient world poetry.

I developed this into a series of films that really spoke to the connection of today with our truly ancient past. It also gives us perspective on time.”The voices of our distant ancestors feel so modern; they feel so connected to us. We can imagine ourselves, them, just as we can actually imagine them in our shoes now. And the point to that is, whatever hardships we are facing … this terrible time that we’re living through, they went through worse. And humanity survived. And that was kind of the hidden message of this: Don’t worry, it really is going to be OK.”