Presented in IFF Rotterdam’s Ammodo Tiger Short Competition, Answering the Sun, crafted by Austrian moving image artist Rainer Kolhberger, is a visually and audibly ostentatious 60-minute vision of the metaphysical.
With a selection of over 100+ films, this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is underway from January 26 to February 6. With an abundance of films to be watched, IFFR is the first international festival to jumpstart the year for cinema. Placed after Sundance and right before the Berlinale, IFFR’s vast selections has a movie for everybody interested in film. Whether it be retrospectives of filmmakers you may have never heard of (Cinema Regained section), the young exciting voices of up-and-coming filmmakers (Bright Future section), or the competition sections (Tiger and Ammodo Short Tiger Competition), plus many more that’ll be highlighted in future dispatches, the IFFR has a unique program that isn’t bounded by world premieres or A-list celebrities, but for the love of the artform.
Rainer Kolhberger, an Austrian moving image artist, whose work is mainly displayed in exhibits and cinemas, brings his latest ethereal, eclectic work, Answering the Sun. As this is my first Kohlberger work, a brief look into his backlog of work shows experiment of light and digitally created vast images that stimulates the senses of the viewers. In Answering the Sun, specific instructions are given to the viewer. They include using a projector, not using headphones, and watching in the darkest room as possible. Fortunately for me, I have the materials to present his work, as close as to the cinema experience as I could. What came from this work is a visually and audibly ostentatious 60-minute vision of the metaphysical. With a rhythm-like structure of light and sound, beginning with a slow transition from an array of colors, start to gradually build on the speed of the pulse of colors changing in the form of water drops onto the screen. With an ambient sound as well, it gradually builds to a sensorial feeling that tries to stream to the inner consciousness outwards. Answering the Sun does also answer the question and feeling of looking at the sun and replicating the inner white light circle that our eyes leave in our vision whether it be open and close causing a disruption in our senses.
