troelsprimdahl

"How to portrait or capture the particular tone of people living in a North Icelandic village? Leaving the portrayed in rigid and silent framings, not able to explain themselves (verbally at least), might seem to be an odd way to go. During our first test shots we discovered how a flat angled camera pointing at the local’s choreographed moves lead to a perceptual mismatch since we somehow were looking at a real everyday scenery, and, at the same time, a vastly theatrical setting, emphasized even more by the tempo and the repetitions in the final film. Well, maybe it is due to this simple performative twist that some kind of authenticity nevertheless is able to find its way to the eyes of a viewer. Like proclaiming that this film is a staged documentary! But then again, which documentary isn’t staged? In any case we ended up with this ‘field report’: a sequence of portraits of the locals situated in their accustomed surroundings. Each of them is articulating their own person, not in the dimension of lingual communication, but simply through the similarities and differences that only the viewer is able to comprehend. So, dear Alana Hunt! Thank you so much for curating our film. My spirit was truly lifted with pure motivation when I read your richly written feedback on the intimacy that you’ve experienced while watching it. It was exactly that affect we had hoped to trigger with this choreographed way of communicating; a way beyond language.

Best wishes and lots of gratitude,
Troels Primdahl"