Cine-tides: Of wandering islands, misty lagoons, salt marshes and the solitude of the Earth defenders

BLOOM

Helena Girón & Samuel Delgado

(2023)

16mm / HD, cor, som, 18 min

San Borondón is a mythical island that appears and disappears. It has appeared on maps throughout history in the vicinity of the Canary Island. The legend of the island of San Borondón became so pervasive that, during the XVI, XVI and XVIII centuries, expeditions were organized to find and conquer it. After centuries of oblivion, it has finally been found.

THE SOLDIER’S LAGOON

Pablo Alvarez Mesa

(2024)

16mm / HD, cor, som, 75 min

Two hundred years after Simón Bolívar’s liberation campaign across Colombia, The Soldier’s Lagoon retraces the Liberator’s journey across the high-altitude marshlands, while searching for glimpses of his ghost still present in this historically contested territory. Reflecting on the construction of historical narratives and their environmental repercussions,The Soldier’s Lagoon traverses the páramo, a living and elusive archive, navigating through the dense fog suspended between Simón Bolívar’s past and Colombia’s present.

The Soldier’s Lagoon is the second in a three-part series of films exploring the intersection of oral narratives, political outcomes, and the territories marked by Simón Bolívar’s passage during the Liberation Campaign of Colombia in 1819.

II.

FLEUR DE SEL / SEA SALT FLOWER

Rose Lowder

(2010)

16mm, cor, som, 32 min

In SEA SALT FLOWER I tried to penetrate the Guérande Salt Marshes cinematographically ; this is a land of birds and salt, recently designated a « grand site national » to protect it from the devastations of modern life. Far from the reverberations of contemporary society, the place has a rhythm of its own throughout the year. After winter restoration work, the mosaic of shallow salt pans are prepared, which by means of minute skilful adjustments, enable the water to circulate; combined with the effects of the sun and the wind, these allow the salt to crystallize. By the end of the process, as at the end of the film, the fine salt flower crystals float on the surface above the bigger crystals on the bottom in all directions at once.

JARDIN DU SEL / SALT GARDEN

Rose Lowder

(2011)

16mm, cor, som, 15 min

The production of sea salt flower is a process of concentration-saturation of sea water in order to form crystallization. The agriculture character of the activity is evoked by the term "salt garden". Six poetic pictures, five based on the sun, the wind and the sea, while the last rests on a small park left fallow.
Music by François Alexis Degrenier.

QUIPROQUO

Rose Lowder

(1992)

16mm, cor, som, 13 min

Quiproquo is a dialogue on the balance to be found between nature and social-industrial technology. As the film refers to the economy of the means involved in relation to what is expressed, it is both a reflection on the potentialities of the medium and an inquiry concerning the implications of the reality portrayed. It is a question of limits and possibilities, the beauty and tragedy of the world, with a critique of contemporary society's dominant choices constantly in the background. Filmed in Berre l'Etang, Bouches du Rhône, in the villages of Orgon, Bouches du Rhône and La Coucourde, Drôme, on the roads to Beaumont-du-Ventoux and Carpentras, Vaucluse, and Tarascon, Bouches du Rhône.

III.

GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE
Jacquelyn Mills
(2022)
16mm / HD, cor, som, 102 min

GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE is an immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, guided by naturalist and environmentalist Zoe Lucas who has lived over 40 years on this remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Shot on 16mm and created using a scope of innovative eco-friendly filmmaking techniques, this feature-length experimental documentary is a playful and reverent collaboration with the natural world. Zoe leads us among wild horses, seals and bugs, through peaks, valleys, roots, sands, weathers, seasons and stars. The intangible is evoked with hidden sounds and vanishing light. Much like a field book, the film tracks its protagonist's labor to collect, clean and document marine litter that persistently washes up on the island shores.

Coda in Dedication of Vasso Katraki, the Stone Engraver
VON GRIECHENLAND / FROM GREECE
Peter Nestler
(1965)
16mm, p&b, som, 28min

The first part of this film is devoted to the Greek resistance against fascism and the civil war for independence. While the voice-over recites facts and names, photos take us into the past and the everyday lives of the people. The second part takes us to Greece in 1965, where the masses are protesting against the removal of the liberal Georgios Papandreou. – Two years later the military junta seized power in Greece. When Filmecho/Filmwoche called the film “communist”, it was doomed. It was rarely shown and originated the stigma that ultimately made it impossible for Peter Nestler to continue to work in Germany.