From a Year of Non-Events

Synopsis

Willi is nearly 90 years old and lives alone on a farm in northern Germany. He likes to talk to his cat, he feeds his chickens and makes his rounds with the aid of a squeaky walker. The garden is overgrown. His house is full of all the things that have accumulated there over the course of a long life, relics of bygone times. Occasionally someone comes to visit, or a moped passes by, but not much happens otherwise. As the seasons change, the film paints a portrait of the everyday life of this resolute, slightly dishevelled old man. It’s also a visual essay on the cycle of life, as the camera observes nature, captures fruit and flowers in bloom in all their glory. Textures equally come to the fore: the cat’s fur, the pattern on the coffee service, the structure of a marzipan cake; at times the camera photographs apples or plastic garden chairs as if they were still lifes. The images transcend mere depiction – they contain a feeling of evanescence, which is enhanced by the fragility of the Super-8 and 16-mm material used to film them. Even the black screens that appear when the reels are changed reveal the passage of time.

Festivals/awards

2017
67th Berlinale FORUM
www.arsenal-berlin.de/fileadmi...
Viennale
Kaliningrad and Vladivostok
Open City Documentary Film Festival, London, UK
Art of the Real im Lincoln Center, New York
Visions du Réel, Switzerland
Mar del Plata Film Festival, Argentina
Duisburger Filmwoche
Underdox
2018
15th dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg 2018

Film Info

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