Dust. It’s everywhere. It is the smallest particle that can be observed with the naked eye. It forms a physical barrier between invisible and visible reality. Dust gets everywhere, usually unwanted. We produce it ourselves in huge and dangerous amounts, only to try and get rid of it again. Dust causes diseases, because it contains countless chemicals, pigments and poisons. The cosmos is made of dust. Film is no more than fixed dust that provides light and images in a dark auditorium.
In Staub, Hartmut Bitomsky presents a phenomenological analysis of almost all the forms that dust can take and in doing so he takes an anthropological as well as a philosophical course. He visits cleaners, factory workers, lab technicians, botanists, meteorologists, astronomers and artists. Dust turns out to be just as tangible as it is intangible. A product that, dependent on the perception, can be turned into business, artistic inspiration or greatest enemy.
Bitomsky allows his associations free rein, comments on his discoveries to his heart’s content and seems primarily to want to emphasise that, where we observe dust, it has in fact already beaten us. (EH)
Film details
- Countries of production
- Germany, Switzerland
- Year
- 2007
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2008
- Length
- 90"
- Medium/Format
- 35mm
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