Finetake Productions

"An Anatomy of Melancholy" is a cinematic meditation on mortality which takes the form of a special anatomy book - one in the process of being made. As hand-drawn illustrations appear slowly and painfully on the pages of the book, showing us parts of a dissected human body, we witness both the act of creation and a testament to our own passing. Accompanying the simple but powerful images of the human body, we hear the words of Keats' Ode on Melancholy: "Ay, in the very temple of Delight. Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine..."

Our narrator looks fondly back at his childhood in Liverpool and the antics of his best friend Johnno. Well known for being a showman and a keen one for joking and the like, Johnno starts to change for the worse after he announced that his father has died.