Shown in Compétition #1.
Synopsis
An experimental travelogue of an journey across Europe in March 2020.
Texte du comité de sélection
Someone says: I am going to take refuge in knowledge. What nobility, what spiritual height, what humility in this project! And he leaves. Well, we have to get on a plane. It’s still the saturated world, ordered by productive rationality, the power of money, spaces designed to manage like calves the human flows leaving for tourist destinations. Fortunately, they are not there, he doesn’t see them, he already hears the sweet atmosphere of the promised Eden, a hashram perhaps? His sight is already disturbed by the fabulous ethers of a pure and true world. But there is no plane to leave, no passengers, no hostess or steward to wish him a safe journey. Where to go? Which way to go? There is no path, no way out. Just a square wave of neglected grass on which the wind is waving old newspapers. He stays. What a pathetic failure. And already the sweet, enchanting voice disappears in the fog.
Translation made by the translator www.DeepL.com/Translator
– F.T.
Note of intent
My experimental documentary film 2020 was done very spontaneously. I knew that the airports were going to be almost empty because news of the virus was spreading and wanted to document the spaces during my journey to Toulouse in mid March. I had made two films ONE and Hello Everybody using an old smartphone with a 320 × 240 resolution camera before and I decided that it would be the ideal format this time too. The visual impact of the heavily compressed video creates a certain kind of timelessness which I thought would fit well with this project, after all the situations of facing a new unknown enemy has followed the human kind since we were still living in caves. After reaching back home, I started to go through the footage and work on the sound. My first idea was to create an abstract soundtrack and combine texts of meditation, especially breathing, with the image. However during my research I came to cross the amazingly powerful performance of Hariharan singing Buddham Saranam Gacchami -an age-old Buddhist chant and I knew immediately that this is perfect for my film.
–Juha Van Ingen