From darkness to darkness (Von Dunkel zu Dunkel)
“From Darkness to Darkness”
You opened your eyes – I saw my darkness live.
I see through it down the bed:
there too it is mine and lives.
Is that a ferry? Which, crossing, awakens?
Whose light can it be at my heels
for a boatman to appear?
Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan: Revised & Expanded [Michael Hamburger’s translation of “Von Dunkel Zu Dunkel”]
Mozaika is a cultural platform based in Barcelona, which publishes digital magazines and runs exhibitions. Its main focus is identity and legacy viewed from numerous perspectives. It recently submitted its own version of the poem “From Darkness to Darkness” for the 7th ZEBRA Film Festival in Berlin.
The fascination around Celan is increasing and Mozaika wanted to commemorate this poem wrote in 1954. Celan introduced the ferryman as a metaphor of carrying oneself otherness into the realm of contemporary language.
After the Holocaust only language remained reachable; close and secure amid all losses. But in order to resurface it had to go through the silence and the lack of answers. The main remained question is whether such a thing {darkness} could be carried over or not. Three friends walked through the forest with torches at their heels and filmed this. They translated muted tombstones into visual names…like good ferrymen.
Watch the video:
Special thanks to iTorch
The brighter the picture, the darker the negative. When we were filming Beatle Jew, we wanted also to record at night, which is the sky’s normal state. Unfortunatly, this extra material could not be used for the movie, which was supposed to be joyful.
Years later, we met Arnau Pons who is a passioned of Paul Celan and decided to defrost this material. It was the right time.