In "Terratoma", director Liadán Roche explores artistic authenticity and obsession

It felt like talking about a time capsule, said Liadán Roche, as she began to explain about Terratoma, her most recent short film.

She started writing it in late 2021 and shot it in December of 2022, before finally debuting it on the film festival circuit in March 2024.

By then, it felt like an artefact, she said. “When I had finished editing, it was complete to me.”

“I’d said all I needed to say,” she says, sat at a corner table by the blue satin curtain at the back of the Bestseller cafe on Dawson Street. “But then you’ve got to do the run of festivals where you basically repeat yourself for a year of two.”

Terratoma was a story that was once personal to Roche, she says.

It is an eerie, sometimes frantic psychological drama about Alice, an artist who is haunted by a toxic former relationship, which she attempts to recreate on film to the detriment of herself and those around her. 

“It was written about a very particular frame of mind I had, like five, six years ago,” she said on the bright, warm bank holiday Monday in May. 

Ten days earlier, she had given it its wider public release via Vimeo, the video streaming platform. “I’ve pushed it out to sea now.”

Identity crisis

Originally from Cork, Roche came to Dublin to study philosophy in 2017, during which time she conceived of, and shot Terratoma, she says.

It began as a script of some 40 pages, or approximately 40 minutes, Roche says. “The one thing about this production was, it was my first time working with people who were professionals in their field, and they were like: 40 pages, that’s not gonna fly.”

She cut it in half, she says, which contributed to its fragmented, delirious feel. “The 40-minute version was more of a conventional drama narrative. But when it was cut down, it became a lot more impressionist.”

The film starts with a looping echoey guitar, and an identity crisis of sorts, as the central character, Alice (played by actress Liath Hannon), attempts to record a video on her laptop, introducing herself formally.

She is a trans filmmaker, and over and over, she speaks to the camera, unsure of how to talk about herself, or how to sound. “I’m a female director,” she says in a variety of voices, before telling the camera that she films recreations of real-life events.

It’s not clear what the video is for. She could be applying for a grant or a spot in an exhibition, says Liath Hannon. 

“It is this feeling of a failed performance, and I think how you sound, or your idea of how you should sound, is very integral for trans women especially,” she says.

She feels like an imposter, disappointed by her work, and carrying a lot of pain, Hannon says. “But she thinks the only way of expressing that is through her art.”

Her inability to express herself to others, without a camera present, comes at the cost of her actual relationships, with this downward spiral panning out in seemingly non-linear fashion.

The story appears to leap back and forward in time. Although mostly, the memories of hers that the audience sees are in fact present-day recreations, while actual interactions are saturated in a hazy, unreal quality, like distant recollections.

Romantic horror

Terratoma is a drama with all the beats of a horror story, but none of the fantastical elements. A ghost story without a ghost.

Lingering around the edge of the story is Alice’s relationship with her partner Mel, played by the performance artist Venus Patel.

But they hardly seem to interact, appearing worlds apart, Patel says. “Even when they are having dinner together, they’re not communicating at all.”

Mel is more like a comfort blanket to her, Hannon says. The relationship doesn’t feel fully loving. 

“Mel is a very good person. But I don’t think Alice sees her personhood. She often does things as a way to get attention from Mel, but as soon as she has that attention, it almost overwhelms her,” she says.

Inversely, Alice’s former abusive relationship with someone named Cormac haunts every scene, even if he is never actually present. 

Instead, he only appears through an actor, or a fling Alice has, when she tries to coax a similar looking guy into assuming Cormac’s role for the camera.

Alice’s film project is too literal, because the only thing that feels authentic to her in art is re-enacting actual things, Roche says. “What she lacks is, like a different way to imagine things that are autobiographical.”

She can remember the pain and anguish, Roche says. “But she can’t remember how it was in reality, so she’s in a cycle. She can’t imagine something different for herself. She can’t imagine a different world, which I think is really important to art.”

That, Roche says, is why the film got the title Terratoma. “It’s a tumour that has the components of hair, teeth, skin. They are the components that build up a person, but are arranged in a way that is toxic, cancerous.”