In his sunlit gallery, William D. Higginson poses a checkered figure seated against the door
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Studio at the Castle

A film by Sina Nazarian · In production

Format
Feature hybrid documentary
Genre
Artist portrait
Theme
Surrealism
Stage
In production
A checkered hand lifts a dripping can of red paint from the checkered floor

Logline

A hybrid portrait of surrealist painter William D. Higginson, in which the gallery where he works becomes a threshold — and the worlds he paints begin to move without him.

Written & directed by
Sina Nazarian
Featuring
William D. Higginson
Production
Nazarian Productions
Shares a world with Internal Landscapes →

From the Opening Sequence

I · The backroom

“Metal grids repeat into themselves — cold, mechanical, folding farther than the eye can follow. Canvases rest in its cells like archived dreams. It is everything William Higginson’s landscapes are not.”

Through rows of steel storage racks, two black mannequins stand in the gallery backroom
Under a clamp lamp, Higginson works over the old door laid flat on the bench His hand drives a sanding block along the door’s edge

II · Light remembers the room

“Light gathers at the eastern windows, then crosses the gallery floor — over paintings, mirror pillars, chandeliers, checkered mannequins standing perfectly still.”

Higginson kneels to lay the checkered floor beside the upright door in his sunlit gallery

III · His hand, elsewhere

“Every stroke she lays on the door, he lays on his canvas. She is not acting on her own. She is his hand, elsewhere.”

Higginson’s hand lays red paint on the canvas A checkered hand lays the same red on the door, its shadow cast across the panel

IV · The threshold

“Not the city beyond the gallery — another landscape. Wind through tall grass. Distant surf. Open sky.”

The checkered figure crouches to finish the red door as Higginson’s gallery looks on

The Studio at the Castle, Vancouver · 2026

Studio at the Castle — Lookbook {{ total }} frames
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A lone man between dark rocks on a misty shoreline, Internal Landscapes

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