Melissa Auf Der Maur Debuts Short Film at Sundance

Like her old pal Courtney Love, former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur is making the leap from music to movies. Auf Der Maur starts in the short film, 'Out of Our Minds,' which part of a multimedia project that includes a comic book and album of the same name. The flick debuted at Sundance last Friday.

'Out of Our Minds,' directed by Tony Stone, stars Auf Der Maur as a woman who time travels through portals in a forest, and as seen in the trailer, features Vikings, car crashes and blood spouting from trees. "It's literally a call for humans to travel out of our minds and into our hearts," she tells Spinner. "We have the capacity for much magic and emotion but we keep ourselves trapped."

Auf Der Maur conceived the project a few years ago and turned her focus to the film when the recording of her sophomore album was halted due to the collapse of Capitol Records. "My creative survival kicked in," she says. "I thought I should work my ass off to have something to show from this nightmare." She didn't expect to premiere it at Sundance, saying she thought it was "a little gothic and edgy" for the festival, but calls the selection "an honor."

Forsaking dialogue, the film is told entirely through an original score that Auf Der Maur collaborated on with Los Angeles' the Entrance Band. "The music shares the lyrical and emotional intent of my album's title track but it was written specifically for the film," Auf Der Maur says. The accompanying comic book is also a standalone part of the story. "It has different, hidden messages for those who want to continue to dig into the symbolism of the story."