Valerie-Malin Schmid

Somewhere in Argentina: as an eclipse of the sun is predicted and the surrounding forest continues to be devastated by logging, only a few women and a little boy are left to fend for themselves. When everything collapses, one clings to the slightest hint of vitality.

Peering through tiny holes that beetles have chewed through a now-dead bark, a spruce monoculture in decline slowly reveals itself. Besides an ecological-economic history, it also carries a spiritual legacy: semicircles of oak poles aligned with the solstices bear witness to a prehistoric sun observatory, once used for supernatural rituals. Florian Fischer and Johannes Krell take us on a phantasmagorical journey that challenges human understanding of change and history with a geological and almost mythological perspective.

Told from the perspective of a child, the film uses poetic images to tell the intimate process of weaning between Laurence and her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Umae. The film not only touches on profound themes relating to the physical and emotional aspects of motherhood, but also raises the question of the extent to which raising children is the task and responsibility of a larger community.