Source Material Studio presents Monolith, a film by Lucie Donahue and Laura Vent which is published exclusively through a limited-edition publication exploring disappearance, pattern-making and the search for meaning in a fragmented world.

Monolith began as an investigation into the mysterious steel structures that appeared in remote landscapes around the world in 2020. The research expanded through Alfred Watkins’ theories of ley lines, counterculture, online conspiracy and apophenia, eventually encountering databases of unidentified bodies and the fragments through which a person might still be recognised.

At the centre of the project is an invisible woman: a fictional character assembled through this research from images, histories, online traces and missing-person cases. Her search for connections leads her to a remote hillside, where she waits for something that never comes. What remains is an orange tent. A temporary monument to a human presence, set against the spectacle of the steel monolith.

The film is not being released as a standalone work. The publication is its portal and the only point of access to the moving image outside of special screenings.

Combining the complete script with visual research, found and archival imagery, diagrams, handwritten notes, case-file material and fragments of memory, the book moves between screenplay, research document and fictional archive. Material used to construct the character sits alongside material that might have belonged to her, bringing her interior world to life through what she noticed, collected, remembered and left behind.

Each copy provides access to the film, creating a release in which the physical and moving-image works are inseparable. The reader encounters the research and fragments of the woman's world before, during or after viewing the film, allowing connections between image, text, memory and moving image to accumulate differently with each encounter.

Monolith is conceived as a single work across print and film: the book is not documentation of the film, but the object through which the film exists in the world.

Monolith Credits:

Film Written, directed and filmed by Lucie Donahue and Laura Vent with the voice of Keeley Forsyth Editing by Laura Vent and Jamie Williams Graphics and Titles by Meriel Allen Music by OKZHARP Produced by Source Material Studio

Publication Written by Laura Vent and Lucie Donahue Designed by Meriel Allen for Source Material Studio First published 2026 Published by Source Material Studio

Specifications

210 x 99mm, portrait 52 pages, full colour Perfect bound, 4mm spine Cover: Mandarin Heavy 270gsm with metallic silver Inners: Elephant Natural Light 115gsm Includes access to the film via QR code

Printed by Print Works Printed in United Kingdom Limited edition of 50