Two construction workers wander through a hybrid natural-industrial zone by day and night, exploring and discovering seemingly insignificant details. This experimental film is a walking tour through a possibly post-apocalyptic world where the familiar seems alien, invoking a sense of mystery and wonder towards the natural world and our relationship to it. It is a slow, totally visual work with phantasmic nighttime sequences and attention to the tactile (a piece of shale, moss, a shell) as the two men touch, feel, and listen to the world around them. Unsettling and eerie at times, the film never explicitly answers any questions, yet their journey is oddly compelling. With an atmosphere reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, the film forces us to find our own interpretations of their explorations.
Community Partner
Luca Ruch, Olivier Matthey
Switzerland
2021
In French with English subtitles
Featured in:
International Shorts: Personal Journeys
The films in this shorts program are all about discovery. Beautiful and thought-provoking voyages of internal and external discovery that honour relations and history, while encountering stimuli that promote a new understanding of self.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
KAKU KAKU SHIKA JIKA fka Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey
Adapted from acclaimed manga artist Akiko Higashimura’s autobiographical manga is a funny and sharply observed coming-of-age story about the creative awakening of a master of manga.
A Sad and Beautiful World
This Lebanese love story chronicles the romance between a level-headed businesswoman and a romantic restauranteur across several decades in wartorn Beirut. It's funny, charming, melancholy and you'll feel it all.
Blue Boy Trial
Transgender filmmaker Kasho Iizuka revisits 1960s Japan and the sensational “Blue Boy Trial,” sparked by the arrest of a doctor performing sex reassignment surgeries. With trans actors in central roles, the film powerfully illuminates buried history, identity, dignity, and resilience.
Aruku - I Walk
This meditative documentary, captures the stories of four contemporary pilgrims on the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage as they follow in the footsteps of master Kūkai, the monk who shaped Japanese Buddhism. Each is burdened, in different ways, by exhaustion, solitude, or quiet disillusionment.
How Dare You?
A bug-loving boy, a passionate classmate, and a troublemaker launch playful eco-protests against their town’s careless habits. As their missions escalate, they face real consequences in Director O’s witty, bittersweet Grand Jury Prize winner from the Toronto Japanese Film Festival.
Credits
Producer
Delphine Jeanneret
Screenwriter
Andrea Bordoli
Cinematography
Andrea Bordoli
Editor
Andrea Bordoli, Noemie Ruben
Original Music
Marco Guglielmetti, Andrea Bordoli
Director
Andrea Bordoli
Andrea Bordoli’s research and practice lies at the intersection between anthropological theory, film, and visual art. His works have been presented in academic settings and exhibited in film festivals and art spaces nationally and internationally. He is currently pursuing a research-creation PhD in Media Anthropology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Since January 2022, he has been a visiting artist-researcher in the Anthropology Department of McGill University.