by Jeff SCHER
2010 / DVCAM / b&w / sound / 1S / 2' 45
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The music was the inspiration for this film. It is from Victor Ullmann's piano Sonata #7, Variations and Fugue on a Hebrew Folk Tune. It was written in 1944 while the composer was imprisoned in Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp on the Czech-German border where, incredibly he was allowed to compose and perform along with a number of other Czech musicians. In four years close to 140 thousand people passed through Terezin. At the time of it's liberation, fewer than 17 thousand survived. Victor Ullmann was not among them. He was on one of the last transports to Auschwitz where he was sent to the gas chambers and murdered on October the 18th, 1944.
Lost Thoughts is about memory. There is a sense of distance from every image, watching but not entering. The piano, like the camera, is solo. Most of the motion in this film is provided by the wind, like a great invisible animator it sets everything in motion. There is a poignance in its rhythms, wind blown branches resembling a rocking cradle and maternal comforting but we are quite alone, like a restless spirit wandering through this reality. I wanted the film to feel like time out of time. It feels like a memory in a dream, like something written on the wind.
I shot it with an older digital point and shoot camera converted to infra red, and with an assortment of filters. The effect is very dramatic and other worldly. Everything is the same, but different.
1 PRINT IN DISTRIBUTION
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distribution format |
Digital file on server |
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screen |
16/9 (single screen) |
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sound |
sound |
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rental fee |
23,00 € |
