PÄIKESEAEG

To the backdrop of an empty landscape, a young man burns pine branches. Three children ride their sleds between the snow-covered trees. In a dark room, a woman sits on her bed, practising the accordion with devotion and intense concentration. The film captures these shots of everyday objects, obligatory sequences of work and inconspicuous gestures, calmly and in the form of static images, with little dialogue and even less context. The intense observations and the carefully selected, fairytale-like shots of nature merge with powerful ambient sounds and gentle background noises to create a romantic yet haunting visual poem in which everything comes across as cold, harsh, and draining—and yet at the same time, just right. Set to the tranquil rhythm of the observed realities of life, it approaches the people in a manner that, though at times bordering on the obtrusive, nevertheless manages to leave them completely in the shadows. In this, her debut feature-length documentary, producer, director, and editor Liis Nimik creates a sense of convergence between human existence, nature, the seasons, and the elements, embedding it in cinematic nostalgia and longing. "Sometimes I long for how they were" are the words the film opens with – and they are no less fitting at the end.

Text: Merlin Webers

Sat 08.11. I 10:00 I KAMMERBÜHNE I original version with English subtitles + simultaneous German translation