What Remains of Calico Hill - 2026 Graduation Film
Highlight Stills and Behind the Scenes Shots
'What Remains of Calico Hill' was a graduation film I worked on as Art Assistant in 2026, an experimental film based upon the human experiments conducted by Unit 731 between the First and Second World Wars.
Dir. Mya Akhina
In 'What Remains of Calico Hill', a young woman discovers hidden remnants of her family's past, unknowingly unravelling a loving history of loss and sacrifice, and the haunting legacy of wartime experiments that shaped her mother's silent, unspoken trauma.
The director, Mya Akhina, has a dedicated article of her own on 'What Remains of Calico Hill', which dissects the film from her perspective as Director and Writer.
'What Remains of Calico Hill' was a hybrid-location film, half shot on a scouted location, and half within a fabricated set build, the latter of which I was involved in.
Due to our the setting being 1930s Imperial Japan, we took great care to research that period in order to faithfully recreate a room for us to shoot within, as well as making use of the rest of the space we had within the studio to create the surgery room utilised in specific portion of the film - This saved us from scouting a secondary location, saving time and money that went to improving other aspects of the film.
The process of actually building that room was entirely from the ground up - a process beginning with mapping and measuring the room's dimensions, raising appropriately sized wooden flats to affix them in position with supports, weights and screws. These walls were then sanded smooth, wallpapered, painted, then finally furnished to create as real a recreation of a 1930s Imperial Japanese household.
'What Remains of Calico Hill' approaches the heavy and complex topic of war crimes carried out under the rule of Imperial Japan during World War Two, choosing to portray in an experimental fashion that conveys the projects themes in an innovative and expressive fashion.
This project was the culmination of many talented peoples efforts, all of whom are listed on the the films dedicated IMDb Page, linked below:
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