Marianna Vas

From the ocean, a volcanic island rises into steamy mist. The black rock of the earth stands in sharp contrast to the billowing vapor that hovers and drifts above the surface. A narrator describes how the island’s first inhabitants sought to explain the violent eruption by attributing the devastation to the wrath of angry gods. With breathtaking black-and-white cinematography, this poetic exploration considers the human relationship to this volatile land, where residents live alongside the looming threat of eruption with reverence, fear, and awe. A collection of scenes where dark and light miraculously coexist illuminates both the physical and spiritual landscapes of this extraordinary place, where life endures the perils of the natural world.

In the courtyard of an old mill, the grandchildren of the elderly owners are living their best life, when the presence of a newly arrived, mysterious relative slowly begins to creep through the air of the homestead. As the initially temporary state seems to become permanent, the tension mounts, and the shadows of childhood comingle with the fragile love and power relationships of the farm’s inhabitants, amidst the atmosphere of communist Hungary in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Wild Berries is the sensorial journey of a solitary boy immersed into his own world, wandering through fields and forests, going further towards the unknown at every step. Left alone in the desolate rural landscape of Romania, he plays hide and seek among gigantic sunflowers, roams the endless fields, watches the animals around him, finds and loses things. Observing and waiting, he looks for excitement and sometimes remains disappointed. He looks back at us and we follow him, driven by a nostalgic desire towards something in ourselves that perhaps never existed.