Cleave
After her partner’s death, a woman refuses separation, binding them together in a silent domestic ritual where love, grief, and control become indistinguishable.
Official poster for Cleave.
Film details
Synopsis
Cleave is an arthouse psychological drama with elements of body horror, exploring grief as possession. The title comes from the double meaning of the word: to split apart and to cling to. This contradiction becomes the emotional and visual foundation of the film.
The story follows a woman who refuses to separate from her dead partner. Bound together by chains and handcuffs, they remain inside a distorted domestic routine where dressing, eating, sleeping, and moving through the house become rituals of denial. Mourning slowly turns into control, and intimacy becomes a form of confinement.
Original score
Listen to the original score for Cleave. The music extends the film’s atmosphere of grief, attachment, silence and emotional confinement.
YouTube link: open original score on YouTube.
Credits
Official credit: Cleave, a short film written and directed by Yorgos Keramydas.
Director statement
“I wanted the film to unfold without dialogue, allowing bodies, space, objects, light, and silence to carry the narrative.”
The chain structures the film’s physical language. It dictates distance, movement, rhythm, and power, turning attachment into something visible and materially unavoidable.
Visual approach
Visually, the film moves through a cold, gradually desaturated palette. As the story progresses, color drains from the image, reflecting emotional exhaustion and the collapse of denial. In the final sequence, light becomes both unbearable and necessary: not a simple image of salvation, but the force that makes separation possible.
Ultimately, Cleave examines the violence hidden inside attachment. It asks whether love can survive without freedom, and whether letting go is an act of loss or the first condition of survival.
Still photos
Selected still images from Cleave. The stills are used here as visual press material and to present the film’s atmosphere, lighting, framing and emotional tone.
Themes and keywords
Grief, attachment, control, denial, mourning, domestic ritual, psychological pressure, bodily confinement, silence, separation, survival and original score.
Press and festival inquiries
For festival inquiries, screening requests, interviews, collaborations, press materials or private viewing links, contact info@yorgoskeramydas.com.
Official FilmFreeway project page: Cleave on FilmFreeway.
