Onlookers

It was a proposal by the Academy of Art in Berlin that sent Polish documentary filmmaker, Leszek Dawid, and German filmmaker, Matl Findel, off to find images in the other’s respective country for two consecutive summers. The only rule they agreed on was that the camera should not move. The result is a filmic dialogue made up of 25 image pairs, like two neighbours chatting over the fence. There is no plot, no story, no protagonists, but there is the stage called life: the comedy and poetry in everyday events, visible to all if you open your eyes. The high definition images actually become a double mirror, in which you can view yourself through the eyes of the “other” as well as seeing the other-ness in one’s own existence. That may sound complicated, but all you have to do is look. The Filmmakers