This Film

Filming is alchemy; preserving, seeing, devouring, cutting. Chopping the flow of images with a push of a button. It privileges a solitary unseen protagonist, choosing this over that and then that, it eats anything, not everything,

The world hacked into fragments, jumps, frames. Kidnapped buildings gestures people animals happening now, again now, again now. The displacement of what was once, to what is now seen carries the odor of end, regardless of the incessant movement of one frame to the next, a machine forcing the celluloid frames forced to run, jump, trip, turning it all into a sad slapstick — slapstick also embodies heartbreak.

A meeting with an old friend, possibly for the last time. [Or] a throwback to a kind of film I never made. But if I did, it would be a noisy film with silence.

This Film and Turn were commissioned by the Arsenal, Silent Green and Film Feld Forschung for a particular future. A copy of each film will be placed in a moist and heated terrarium to track the films demise. For This Film, printed on polyester, a relatively new format, it may mean accelerated fading from red to sunset orange to a hazy pastel, but it's difficult to say. For Turn, printed on the older and volatile acetate, the change may be quicker and more dramatic as it falls victim to vinegar syndrome. Acetic acid will be released, the base will shrink and buckle, the image will decompose. Through off-gassing, this seemingly stable spool of triacetate will be in a state of constant flux. It will also have the ability to infect others of its kind.

Music: Arnold Dreyblatt

Sound mix: Jochen Jewzusser

Post production coordinator: Markus Ruff

Producer: film feld forschung/living archive/silent green

Negative cutter: Monika Dörge

Lab: Andec Filmtechnic

Timing: Ludwig Draser

Scan: Korn Manufaktur