We Are Not Here

A portrait of a small derelict town waiting for a road. Through a series of vignettes we take a glimpse into the strange life of the town and its residents.

Creative team

Writer/director: Aaron Mirkin
Producers: Aaron Mirkin, Miriam Levin-Gold

Filmmaker’s statment

We Are Not Here is based on the short story The Relationship by the brilliant Lonely Christopher. I was drawn to it by its haunting content as well as its unconventional structure, more closely resembling a piece of classical music or a triptych painting than fiction or narrative film.

The film is a character portrait of a town, each scene shining a light on different aspects of the town’s identity, connected by the promise of a road. The road represents different things to each of the characters in the film, as I believe it does for the audience.

Despite the road having a specific meaning to me during the making of the film, I was very conscious of keeping it ambiguous, as I believe it is more interesting when art presents questions, not answers.

We Are Not Here has had much success, winning awards and screening at prestigious festivals and venues around the world. I know it would not have been remotely as good without the cast and crew we had, so I want to thank them all for their work.

About Aaron Mirkin

Aaron Mirkin is a Toronto-based filmmaker and graduate of Ryerson University’s film program.

His work has won awards and screened internationally at festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand, Kurzfilmwoche Regensburg and the Toronto International Short Film Festival.

He works as a sound designer and picture editor and also directs music videos, working with such bands as Xiu Xiu, Picastro and Fresh Snow.

His next short film, Crazy House, is set to shoot in the spring of 2015.