Adria Petty: NU-6

Hauntingly shot in black and white and accompanied by a cacophonous and angular score, LA-based filmmaker Adria Petty shares her latest film, NU-6. After suffering two ruptured eardrums and near deafness, the director of music videos for Beyoncé and Regina Spektor experienced a surreal episode while taking hospital hearing exam “NU-6,” induced by its strangely evocative test words such as “love,” “home” and “void.” “I felt the words I had to repeat were intimate. They had thoughts and images and history connected to them,” explains Petty, daughter of rock music legend Tom. “I felt embarrassed saying them in front of a stranger and I wanted to express that internal monologue,” she adds. Filmed over a single day, the film follows model Jessica Cook through the halls of a hospital and into a testing room where she is launched into an increasingly abstract and frightening space of inner-consciousness, fantasy and illusion. Citing influences such as Godard, Buñuel and The Twilight Zone, Petty found the filming process itself cathartic. “It was a very special experience because it was quick and spontaneous and creative for the sake of creativity alone,” she says.