From the film-maker:

I felt inspired by Harmen Steenwyck's painting, not only because of the strong contrast dividing the painting between light and darkness, but also because of its symbolism and use of objects, the dramatic play between the ray of light illustrating eternity, the dominating skull and the shell, and the chronometer and expiring lamp, which remind us that time is limited. To express the delicate balance between life and death - 'the transience and frailty of human life' - the visual story is based around the personification of life and death, a little girl and a moth, respectively, with emphasis on the painting's atmosphere of 'stillness', creating a dream-like environment where time has no essence. Moths have been associated with the spiritual world since ancient times, the night being the realm of the moth and the dwelling place for souls.

Marianne McCarney

A piece inspired by Harmen Steenwyck, Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life, about 1640