Sediments
Artifacts of the past are hidden deep in the ground, covered by multiple layers of dust. Filipa César and Alexandra Gerbaulet engage into the meticulous operation of removing layer by layer. They dig deep into the ground and into the past. Their examination uncovers forgotten events and brings dark secrets and inconvenient facts to light. Their parallel analysis of geology and history reveals complex connections and identifies the linkage between land, soil and politics.
Shift
SCHICHT (SHIFT) unfolds the portrait of the filmmaker's family - brought to life by records from private archives - and embarks on an expedition through the shrinking industrial city of Salzgitter. A city that is a cyborg with an iron skeleton and a heart beating 1000 metres deep under layers of soil and concrete. Mining, steel factory, model city. We revisit the years 1933 and 1945, where the first post-war generation envisions its future. Rudolf Gerbaulet completes his apprenticeship at the Reichswerke AG (formerly known as Hermann-Göring-Werk), works in the mine and at the Volkswagen plant. His wife Doris suffers from multiple sclerosis. They name their first daughter after a singer: Alexandra. A pulsating, sometimes breathless, reflection observes personal and family history. The filmed locations are intertwined with archival material: propaganda, news, photos from family albums. Everything is subjected to the Gerbaulets interpretation. A film between analysis and imagination, composed of the punk of the artists youth, accompanied by the roar of the steel mill and the noise of the highway. Interrupted by the cutting silence of abandoned mines, in which from 2020 nuclear waste will be dumped. Half-life of 24,000 years. 685 generations.
- Deutschland
- 00:28:30
- Director: Alex Gerbaulet
- Production: Merle Kröger
- Photography: Alex Gerbaulet, Smina Bluth
- Editing: Philip Scheffner
- Music: Philip Scheffner
- Sound: Tom Schön
- Languages: de
- Subtitles: en
- Year: 2015
- Website
Mined Soil
The film essay MINED SOIL takes us on a wandering path to revisit the work of Guinean agronomist Amílcar Cabral who was studying the erosion of soil in the Portuguese Alentejo region at the end of the 1940’s. A lecture performance unfolds the connection between his work and the fact that he later became one of the leaders of the African Liberation Movement in the Portuguese colony Guinea-Bissau. Theories of colonialism and its economies are combined with a documentation on a current experimental gold mining site operated by a Canadian company and located in the same Portuguese area once studied by Cabral. The essay explores past and present definitions of soil as a repository of memory, trace, exploitation, crisis, arsenal, treasure and palimpsest. A geopolitical investigation about soil and dominion.
- Frankreich
- 00:34:00
- Director: Filipa César
- Production: Olivier Marboeuf
- Photography: Matthias Biber & Filipa César
- Editing: Filipa César
- Music: No music
- Sound: Nuno da Luz & Ricardo Ganhão
- Languages: pt,fr,en,de
- Subtitles: en
- Year: 2014
- German Premiere
