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Press Releases
Composer John Aylward’s Oblivion Wins 'Best Musical Film' at Cannes World Film Festival
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Composer John Aylward’s Opera Film Oblivion
Wins Best Musical Film at Cannes World Film Festival
Inspired by Dante’s Purgatorio, Aylward Crafts a Haunting One-Act Tale
of Displaced People in a Mysterious Supernatural Realm
Watch the Trailer and Explore Video Excerpts
Full Pre-Screening Access to Film Available Upon Request
“Aylward is an imaginative and resourceful talent.” – Gramophone Magazine
“Aylward has crafted a brilliant piece of drama.” – OperaWire
New York, NY (August 13, 2025) – Composer and librettist John Aylward's one-act chamber opera film Oblivion has won “Best Musical Film” at this year’s Cannes World Film Festival. Aylward wrote the story, libretto, and music for the 70-minute film, produced by Ravenser Odd Productions and co-produced by independent filmmaker Graham Swon. The film was directed by Laine Rettmer with Alice Millar as Director of Photography and stars Ty Boque, Nina Guo, Lukas Pappenfuscline, and Cailin Marcel Manson.
Aylward began work on Oblivion just before the COVID-19 pandemic and immediately began to imagine a live staging, which seemed impossible at the time. He pitched the idea of creating a film to Swon and Rettmer, who became pivotal collaborators. The team shot the film in 12 days at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the Copper Lantern Motel in West Brimfield, Massachusetts. Aylward worked with a post-production team to create the visuals that fused the pre-recorded studio audio and footage from the film shoot together.
With a portfolio of work called “mysterious, iridescent and daring” (Gramophone Magazine), Aylward takes those elements to spellbinding extremes in this new work exploring the value of self-knowledge, the nature of redemption, and our capacity to distinguish truth from falsehood. Drawing inspiration from Dante’s Purgatorio, Oblivion takes us inside a surreal netherworld where two disoriented Wanderers struggle to make sense of their existence, unsure of whose account to trust – or whether they even want the answers.
The atmosphere is set by Aylward’s score for four voices, backed by viola, cello, double bass, electric guitar, and electronics. Notes by Dan Lippel, who performs the electric guitar part, call the score “beguiling and mysterious … virtuosically intertwining spoken and sung texts with angular figures in the instruments… The closing material in the ensemble has an ethereal and disembodied ambience, as if the musical figures themselves are circles in Purgatory.”
The film’s cast recording, released on New Focus Recordings in September 2023, features Laura Williamson, viola; MIZU, cello; Greg Chudzik, contrabass; Daniel Lippel, guitar; John Aylward, electronics; Stratis Minakakis, Musical Director; and Joel Gordon, recording engineer.
The Cannes World Film Festival award is Oblivion’s first major global recognition. Now enjoying success on the film festival circuit, Oblivion is available for future live stagings and continued screenings.
The World Film Festival in Cannes is an annual competition for international filmmakers dedicated to feature films, short films, independent films, documentaries, experimental films, animated films, and more. The Festival Jury, made up of members from the film and music industries and other artistic and cultural fields, has no connection to the films in competition and rewards the best films in each category.
Trailer and Behind the Scenes Photo Gallery:
https://johnaylward.com/john-aylward-portfolio/#Oblivion
Cannes World 2025 Grand Prize Winners:
www.world-film-festival.com/en/grand-winners-2025/
About John Aylward
The Boston Globe has described John Aylward’s music as being “delicate and deep, all at once,” and Gramophone has called it “mysterious, iridescent and daring.” Textura remarked that Aylward’s recent monodrama Angelus was “gripping music of a high order,” and that “the manner by which Aylward conjoins his vocal and instrumental elements in the work sometimes calls to mind Berg’s handling of orchestration in Wozzeck and Lulu.”
Aylward grew up in the Sonoran Desert on the border of Arizona and Mexico, a child of an immigrant mother from Germany (herself a World War II refugee) and in circumstances of both tremendous diversity and economic instability. His music reflects the rich expressions of converging cultural histories and the deeply interwoven communities of that earlier life, all within the otherworldly landscapes of the desert.
Recent awards and fellowships include those from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, the Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress, the Fromm Foundation, MacDowell, Tanglewood, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, First Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music, and many others.
Aylward is the co-director of Ecce, a contemporary new music and performance art ensemble. Besides Aylward, the ensemble is co-directed by composer Grace Hughes and features Jordan Hadrill, violin; Robbie Bui, cello; Lily Xie, flutes; Barret Ham, clarinet; and Geoffrey Burleson, piano. Unconstrained by traditional boundaries in classical music, Ecce creates new and original interactions with music by performing in often unconventional environments. Known for supporting the work of emerging composers, especially through its annual Etchings festival, Ecce has cultivated a worldwide community through in-person performances, educational endeavors, and a wealth of video and multimedia resources. Learn more at www.johnaylward.com and eccearts.com.
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