Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) Shonibare explores the idea of film as a "moving tableau" or animated painting with luminous surfaces, sumptuous attention to detail and strong compositional effects. His first film, Un Ballo in Maschera, takes its title from Giuseppe Verdi's 1859 opera, which was inspired by the assassination of the Swedish King Gustav III at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792. An elaborate costume drama featuring performers in Dutch wax ball gowns, frock coats and ornate Venetian-style masks, Shonibare's film represents his most technically complex project to date. Aristocracy and play, frivolity and excess are themes within the film. Shonibare has spoken about his interest in narrative structure, citing the French New Wave films of Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais as inspirational. Un Ballo in Maschera extends this interest, using a circular--not linear--approach to time. After the king is shot, he rises and dances once again; and the event is played backwards and forwards with minute variations as the actors re-perform the event for the camera.