Heart Shaped Bed
Identity, heartbreak, and desire collide in four acts.
Directed by Andrea Crisci
Zurich-born and Berlin-based Andrea Crisci is already carving out a distinct voice in contemporary filmmaking. Known for a visual language that moves effortlessly between high-profile commercial campaigns and intimate, experimental work, Crisci brings a multidisciplinary eye to all his work.
Heart Shaped Bed takes inspiration from a song written by Nicolás Astorga and Sol Alegría after their breakups. But for Crisci, the story reaches beyond romantic loss. “It was important to make the story more universal,” he says. Told in four acts, the film follows a gender-fluid main character through intimacy, escape, and emotional breakdown. Voice memos, shifting identities, and dreamlike visuals reflect the confusion and vulnerability that can come after a major emotional trigger.
Heart Shaped Bed explores how we try to hold on, let go, and find ourselves again.
Heart Shaped Bed unfolds like a sensory fever dream - visually intimate, sonically disorienting, and emotionally raw. How did you approach the four-act structure in shaping that descent (or release) into emotional chaos?
Thanks for having me, and much love to everyone involved in the project, for their commitment and energy!
When the band and I first discussed the music video, it was clear to me that I wanted to create something that sits between a performance, a play, and a film. Merging sound elements like multiple tracks, and having a structure that shifts away from the very vignette-like storytelling of most music videos nowadays.
This grew from a recent interest in modern theatre, where stories often unfold in set steps from prologue to act, act to aftermath, guided by the proven structures of classical dramaturgy. I wanted the viewer to get used to the stage so they can then switch focus to nuances like a slight touch or a small change in facial expression. The music, of course, dramaturgically and lyrically triggered this theatrical approach and gave me this feeling that it holds and holds before finally letting you fall
Identity feels fluid throughout, shifting across gender, intimacy, desire, and detachment. What kinds of conversations or internal questions guided how you portrayed the self in transformation?
Nico and Sol wrote the song after they both had breakups, so we could all draw a lot of inspiration from our own experiences. For me, it was important to make the story more universal than just a romantic breakup – I’m very fascinated by people’s different, but ultimately very similar, reactions to a disruptive experience of any kind. There’s a trigger and then there’s the fall, usually turning into various forms of escapism. In the beginning, the voice memo acts as the trigger that starts a transformation of the ego. The inner world/monologue that feels vulnerable on the bed, the intimacy shared around and on it, with segments holding a glimpse of “real” connection that then descends into this ecstatic fall.
The idea to switch genders throughout the film came from the vocals of Nicolás Astorga, the male written vocalist and songwriter, whose voice sounds very gender ambiguous. We wanted to reflect that ambiguity, which allowed us to show identity not as a fixed label but as something fluid.
We often spoke about how intimacy of any sort can become ritualistic – a way to feel alive when your world has fractured, or to lose oneself. To translate those ideas into movement, Anton, our dear cinematographer, and I choreographed the camera down to the smallest detail: when the characters reach toward each other, the camera moves forward as though drawn by their longing; when they pull away, it drifts back or shifts sideways reflecting a breaking point while holding onto the experienced sorrow. The camera always moves to the actors, who carried and expressed these very feelings and intentions through their presence.
All these elements came together to show that identity isn’t fixed. Desire and detachment often coexist, and it’s in navigating that tension that we get closer to understanding ourselves.
“We often spoke about how intimacy of any sort can become ritualistic – a way to feel alive when your world has fractured, or to lose oneself.”
The red strobe, the shadows, the mirror-like surfaces, all evoke a certain bodily fragmentation and desire to escape. How did you build that visual language to mirror the emotional states of the character?
I’m really glad it resonated like that. I remember watching the first scans and thinking, fuck, this isn’t going to work.
The idea of strobe lights isn’t very new, but we were all big fans of it. They create a very disorienting but, as the seconds settle, calming feeling, which fits the instrumental very well. On top of that, the different inserts created a more fragmented dynamic, reflecting the character’s introspective experience. It visualizes this very fragile feeling of seeing nothing and everything – of being surrounded by so many impressions and people, but still feeling isolated and disconnected, lost between having to let go and holding on.
The film navigates intimacy not just as connection, but also as coping - a kind of ritual. How did you approach sexuality and touch in the film as emotional, not just visual, tools?
Touch and sexuality in the film aren’t just about intimacy – they’re ways of coping when something breaks inside. There's a hedonistic impulse, using different partners to feel something, to escape, to forget, or maybe also to remember. I was interested in how people can lose but also find themselves in those moments. It’s the instinct to relive or even reverse moments of vulnerability.
A lot of that emotional weight was already there with Sol and Nico. They carried it in their performances because it was there when they wrote the song. Our job was more about creating the right atmosphere on set – one that allowed for openness, where the full range of interaction could unfold naturally, from tenderness to desire. We, of course, rehearsed and had a concept of the different forms of intimacy and how they shift throughout, but in the end, it came from the trust between everyone in the room. You set the frame, and then it’s about what unfolds in the moment.
What was the collaborative process like in shaping this world together with Sol Astolfi and Nicolás Astorga?
We started a pretty long time ago, around September 24. We spent a lot of time meeting, talking, and letting the process unfold at its own pace. It was an open and evolving collaboration, with ideas coming together, shifting, and sometimes falling apart. Sol and Nico came in with a strong foundation; elements like the bed and the club scenes were already kind of set, and from there, we continued to build, layer, and refine. It was good to have the idea grow over time, which made it hard, on the other hand, to also pursue it. There were times when everything felt undoable, especially budget-wise. Big thanks also here to Flo from Farbfilm Studio for his support!
We exchanged inspirations, wrote a text treatment together, and kept circling back to the emotional core of the track. It was a bit of a rollercoaster at times, which I think is natural in any creative process where everyone has a strong vision. In the end, it came down to compromise and trust, allowing each person to carry their part.
Your work moves between commercial projects for brands like Adidas and Nike, and deeply personal ones like Heart Shaped Bed. Where does this film sit in your creative evolution, and what's next for you?
This project helped me get out of a creative block. I was doubting myself a lot and throwing out ideas constantly. It was a good way to relearn and rebuild trust in myself.
In the future, I really want to go into more installative projects such as video installations. A couple of months ago, I showed a 3-channel Installation and found it super fascinating to see people move, react, and converse within that space. To see their commitment when they enter a room and watch something, compared to seeing something while doomscrolling. It’s basically a live reaction to your work, which is super cool!
Besides that, I will still keep editing, cause it’s a lot of fun and you can learn so much through seeing other directors' footage and talking to them. And for the rest, we see what the future holds!
Directed by Andrea Crisci
Starring: Sol Astolfi, Nicolás Astorga, Maya Uma Sehmer, Damian Rebgetz, Pétra L.
Associate Director: Sol Astolfi
Creative Direction: BED & Andrea Crisci
Director of Photography: Anton Beliaev
Art Director: Nicolás Astorga
Executive Production: Farbfilm Studio / Flo Brunner
Producer: Galina Belkova
Production Coordinator: Ula Wrobel
Production Coordinator: Emma Ehmer
1 AD: Gregory Shell
Runners: Jan-Philipp Warnicke, Clemens Dörr
1st AC: Tsvetomir Loukanov
2nd AC: Christoph Michele
Steadicam Operator: Lucas Heinze
Gaffer: Jens Thurmann
Best Boy: Noel Metzler
Key Grip: Felix Schüler
Electrician: Jonas Clever Lab: Cinelab Romania
Set Design: Nicolás Astorga
Set Build Curtain, Window: Erna Zuhric
Set Build Assistant: Dmitrii Pervushin, Dmitry Lebedev, Polina Zagumenova, Rosi Pernthaller
Carpenter: Théo Salvatore Canu HMU: Julia Kunaeva Styling: Nicolás Astorga Editor: Andrea Crisci
Colorist: Imri Agmon
Colorist Rep: S EC Studio
VFX Window: Noa Röthlisberger, Janis Reichert
Extras: Arturs Strekalovs, Bruce L. Edwards, Catalina Varela, Elmo, Florian Dillen, Ivan Vasin, Kristina Polosina, Letu, Mara Chiappara, Maria Paz Gonzalez, Natalie Meoz, Nicole Andrea Bächler, Sebastian Halle, Tatiana Chekhova, Yanina Isla
Doggo: Levan
Doggos Mom: Marie Lynn Speckert
Heart Shaped Bed written by Nicolás Astorga, Sol Astolfi with contributions by Pablo Thiermann and Ema Schiller
Recorded, produced and mixed by Pablo Thiermann Mastered by Jari Antti Additional
Sound Design by Pablo Thiermann, Andrea Crisci
Published by Bretford Records
Many thanks to: Flo at Malzfabrik, Cornelia at Cinelab Romania, Camelot Rental, Julian Wildner, & everyone involved for their commitment and energy
Supported by Initiative Musik gGmbH with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media