Pawel Kleszczewski and Kasia Zimnoch are Polish filmmakers and visual artists living in Ireland. The artist duo creates animations based on mythology, folklore and legends.
In The Beginning Was Water – Bradán Feasa is a short animation film that draws on legends and myths, especially those of Slavic and Celtic folklore and Siberian Shamanic culture. The animation presents an Irish legend about Knowledge (in Irish: Bradán Feasa). According to the Irish myth, the Salmon of Knowledge lived at the source of Shannon River. The river banks near the source were surrounded by divine hazelnut trees. When the nuts from the trees fell into the water, the salmon ate them and gained all of the world’s knowledge.
The work refers in its aesthetics to the landscape of West Cavan, the region where the legendary source of the Shannon River (Shannon Pot) is situated. In The Beginning Was Water – Bradan Feasa discusses the mythologies and folklore involving water, and opens up a portal to shamanism, animism, and pre-historic religions. It combines shared myths and traditional knowledge with contemporary storytelling.