A Portrait Documentary Film, 2009

​

What is a face, really? Is it the image captured by a camera, the surface shaped by make-up, or the interpretation created by an artist? Is a face only what appears before us, or does it reveal something hidden within, something behind the visible?

​

Inspired by Pablo Picasso’s words, “Deformations simply do not exist,” An Absent Face explores the fragile relationship between identity, appearance, and perception through the life and work of mask maker Stephen Jon.

​

This intimate documentary portrait enters the world of a man who creates faces for others while questioning the meaning of his own. Through the making of masks, Stephen explores the boundaries between reality and illusion, presence and absence, the human face and the hidden self.

​

A reflection on identity and transformation, An Absent Face asks: when the face we show the world is only a mask, where does the true self begin?

​​

United Kingdom