Lisl Ponger: Passages (Passagen)
Why do we make a journey? Lisl Ponger’s found footage film offers a
range of answers. It could be a sudden appetite for travelling,
postcolonial privilege or even an unavoidable necessity. Lost in
mesmerising images from travel films, we listen to the reports of
travellers and refugees. Who tells these stories? Who films those
journeys? A daughter asks her father on the run: “Where are we going?“
The father replies: “We’re going somewhere where it’s safe.“ Another
woman meticulously describes each stage of her cruise on the Danube.
Somewhere in between is where each journey begins.
Austria 1996, colour, 35mm, 12 min, German with English subtitles.
Directed by Lisl Ponger. Print Source: Six Pack, Vienna.
Angela Schanelec: Orly
In Paris Orly Airport, an exemplary non-place, Schanelec finds a perfect
setting for her episodic structures. Numerous characters in transit
briefly cross paths. Possibilities arise briefly before the journey
continues. For example, we encounter a mother and her son. They have an
argument. Something between them awaits revelation. With everyone on the
move, it feels like everything could vanish at any moment. Yet as long
as they are waiting, the filmmaker can highlight certain individuals and
their conflicts before they vanish into the monotonous flow of people
passing through.
Germany 2010, colour, 35mm, 84 min, French, German with English
subtitles. Directed by Angela Schanelec. With Josse de Pauw, Bruno
Todeschini, Natacha Régnier, Mireille Perrier, Maren Eggert, Emile
Berling, Lina Phyllis Falkner. Print Source: Films Boutique, Berlin.