Intuitional Editing

Sunrise Dacapo

I had studied photography in Utrecht before I came to Cologne in 2003. Since I started to see the medium of photography as a limitation I began studying film at the KHM and was very much interested in documentary filmmaking. But despite all of this I still can't say for sure whether I consider myself a photographer or a filmmaker. For me it's more a question of subjects that interest me, which I either work on through the cinematic or the photographic medium. Sometimes I do both. Right now I'm working on the publication of a book of still photographs and at the same time I'm preparing a documentary about the same subject for next year.

Since SUNRISE DACAPO was a student film, were there any special conditions or requirements?

The film came out of a seminar called “Documentary miniatures”. We were able to film on 16mm material, of which we received only two rolls, meaning about 22 minutes, each. So we had to shoot very concentrated and deliberate. The film should be focused on a repetitive process that can be studied  and observed very closely. These conditions were made in order to keep us from shooting loads of material during this, our first, documentary, which would then only cause us trouble during editing. I thought this concentrated approach to filming was great, and I try to follow it to this day.

Sunrise Dacapo

I was very much inspired by Joris Iven's film RAIN from 1929, so my first idea was to show different kinds of rain, one of which would be the artificial rain of the greenhouse. But then the greenhouse as a location held a very direct fascination for me, and since time and material were so limited I decided to concentrate on this one location only. Another big influence on me was DER LAUF DER DINGE by Fischli and Weiss. This film just popped into my head when I first entered the greenhouse and saw all these very different but somehow rudimentary machines.

It is striking how you don't show any human control or influence at the beginning of the film, with people coming into frame very gradually later on. What sort of concepts did you have for the film?

Originally it was planned to be a very rhythmical film, starting out very silently and then growing louder and faster. This didn't work out in the editing room at all. In the end I ended up editing the film more or less on intuition. I very much liked the idea that the cranesbill, which is the very epitome of the German potted plant and is supposed to evoke a feeling of “nature” – that this very “nature” is being produced so mechanically. But you see early on that this will not work completely, that humans do have to be there to help along. At the same time the people themselves turn to machines, since their actions seem so repetitive and stupid. After a while you can't distinguish any more between man and machine and why and how one can replace the other.

Sunrise Dacapo

With me I had a camera assistant and a sound guy. We shot for one long summer day, not leaving this place for about 12 hours. After a time this leads to you melting into the place. You start to perceive every single movement and every single sound.

Please tell us something about the reception of this film, especially where it has been shown and what reactions it provoked.

I took me by surprise how well the film was received. Shortly after we finished it it was shown at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and was later included into the German Film’s Next Generation short film collection that was presented in Cannes. And it has travelled quite a bit since then. We get very different reactions: some people think it's really boring and pointless, others love the film passionately.

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