Photosynthesis: Roots of Renewal
Film in Development
Photosynthesis: Roots of Renewal is a moving-image work exploring perception, adaptation and the relationship between inner and outer environments.
Set within changing forest landscapes, the film follows a solitary figure through a gradual shift in how she understands and responds to herself and to the world around her. As familiar ways of navigating begin to change, the work considers what happens when established patterns no longer provide certainty and a different kind of awareness becomes necessary.
Working through movement, landscape, repetition and embodied performance rather than dialogue or conventional narrative, Photosynthesis explores transformation as a process of recalibration: the gradual development of new ways of seeing, moving and participating within complexity.
The work continues Muller’s long-standing exploration of landscape as both physical environment and reflective space, bringing questions of neurological difference, ecological systems and adaptation into closer relation.
Within the Wider Practice
Photosynthesis: Roots of Renewal forms the current horizon of Landscape as Mirror, Self as Myth. Emerging from more than a decade of self-portraiture, performance and symbolic engagement with landscape, the film carries recurring questions of rupture, transformation and integration into a more restrained and observational moving-image language.
Landscape functions not simply as setting or metaphor, but as an active environment through which patterns of perception, disruption, recalibration and participation can be encountered.
Development History
Photosynthesis: Roots of Renewal has developed through a series of supported research and development stages.
The project began to take shape through mentorship and Chekhov training with Declan Drohan in 2025, supported by Leitrim County Council Arts Office. This period provided space to develop the performance language, conceptual framework and underlying structure of the work.
Further individual bursary support from Leitrim County Council enabled the project to expand beyond its initial performance development and begin the process of translating the work into a film. This included developing the performance structure into a film script and exploring how the work might operate at a larger cinematic scale.
During 2026, further development supported early production conversations with a producer, cinematographer and costume designer, alongside more focused consideration of locations, production requirements and the visual language of the film.
The project has now reached an advanced development stage. Its conceptual structure, performance language, film structure and broad production approach have been established, with a principal filming location identified subject to final production planning.
Current Production Stage
The project is currently seeking approximately €25,000 in production funding to move from development into principal photography and post-production.
The project is currently paused while the appropriate funding, production window and final crew configuration are secured.
Rather than accelerating the work simply in order to complete it, the next stage will be undertaken when the necessary production conditions are in place to realise the film at the scale and level of attention it requires.
Production & Partnership Enquiries
Photosynthesis: Roots of Renewal welcomes conversations with funders, producers, commissioning organisations and institutional partners who could support its progression into production.
Please get in touch with details of your organisation, interest in the project and the contribution or partnership you would like to discuss. A prospective screening or presentation can also be discussed in relation to the film’s development and completion.