Mothlight is a silent “collage film” that incorporates “real world elements.” Brakhage produced the film without the use of a camera, using what he then described as “a whole new film technique.”

Brakhage collected moth wings, flower petals, and blades of grass, and pressed them between two strips of 16mm splicing tape.

The resulting assemblage was then contact printed at a lab to allow projection in a cinema. The objects chosen were required to be thin and translucent, to permit the passage of light.

Brakhage reused the technique to produce his later film, The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981). Mothlight has been described as boasting a “three-part musical structure.