Afréttur is a 52 minutes documentary shot in Iceland between 2004-2007. The film is in post-production and will be premier in Reykjavik, the 9th of October. The aim is to immersiv experience.

Larus and Palmi

As Hitchcock was stating ´better to start from a cliché than to arrive to one´. I should say that the best way to look at Afréttur would be to follow the flow of time and therefore to adopt a classical narrative script that would start some hours before the beginning of Afréttur and that would end 24 hours after. It is the essence of Afréttur  that implies to follow a certain path to build the documentary. In fact, Afréttur (called transhumance in French/English ) is of those phenomenon that witness nature as a whole, it shows this crucial notion: mankind is (a part of) nature just as sheep, dogs, horses. They are expressions of nature’s voice. Wind, sky, stones would then be the notes of this opera.

Palmi riding norh

Crossing the river

The essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity.
Definition of transhumance : seasonal migration of livestock to summer pastures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersive_digital_environment

Moreover, see quantum mechanics : the more you try to observe a phenomenon ‘closely’ the more you disturb it. It is therefor better to postulate from the beginning that you are a part of it.
Birth of agriculture -10 000 BC.
This is clearly for me the time where farmers draft the sheep in the réttir. This is a great opportunity to get connected to reality again.

By realistic we mean as descriptive point of view. Shots that describ what is happening.

2005. A summer night on the north coast of Bretagne. The moonlight explodes in pieces against the sharp waves of a dark and deep sea, which is murmuring to our ears the sacred peace of this moment. We are a small groupe of contemporary human beeings, males and females. We have been eating, walking and we are now silently sitting on the top of a large square rock.

The wind is fresh, nearly cold but my full belly keeps me warm and relaxed. Dark silhhouettes surround me, David, Marie, Julien, Jean-Michel.

In the middle of notime, Julien tells me : « It feels like if we were prehistorical men ». He is right, I know it, i feel it deep into my flesh. Yes, those forgotten feelings visited me before. Next time you sit, in the night, close to a fire, take some time, to feel the security, the strange fascination, the nice confort which fils you spirit. Thousands and thousands of years separate you from those humans of ancient times. Still, you are linked.

Julien was right, a very ancient feeling came. I stood up and when to David. He was sleeping, laying on his back, facing the stars. I woke him up with sounds that I thought sounded authentic prehistorical. Simultanously, he opened his eyes and said : Nagnu. I turned around to the others and said : Nagnu. Immediatly they repeated Nagnu, nagnu, nagnu. It seems so natural, still so unknown. Without a meaning but still buried deep inside each one of us. The Nagnu was there.

I understood that feelings could travel with our instinct though time and that words could too, not on stones, not on paper, but within each one of us. I decided that Nagnu was one of the primitive words. I am neither a scientist nor a magician. But I wrote down mentaly this hypothesis : Nagnu was the first word. Lots of doors opened nearly instantly in my mind, which was a proof that my hypothesis was good. And my first idea was that if there was a first word, then this word would meant anything and nothing at the same time. This is how Nagnu became the name and the objective of my quest as a poet, the upstrean journey along the rivers which carries our instincts to the sea, which defines us and reflect our soul.

But this is an article about cinema. So where is the link between, prehistorical words, feelings, Nagnu, beeing around a fire a night

The main thing is that a film is a trip you take poeple on. So, you d better know were you are going, it used to be love story-land, horror-land, comic-land. Now we know. We know the name of the destination : Nagnú-land.

Loa and The one who makes it rain will be aired.

The documentary “i safni med sidunonnum” will also be a part of the event.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There is lot of material that was taken by Giil Taws, Vidi Fridbertsson and Kristinn Ingi Thorarinsson. This will be edited and compiled soon.

Il y a 10 ans, sans savoir pourquoi, une passion pour le cinéma est née en moi. Je me suis vite demande d’ou mes films tenaient leur singularite. Peu a peu et avec cette allégresse qui caractérise la compréhension, l’idée est née, la conviction s’est affirme par la preuve : mes films (je n’oserai pas parler pour mes camarades cinéastes) sont le reflet d’une identité différente et qui au travers de ce langage peu s’adresser au monde. Et c’est justement une telle porte que mon esprit exigeait.

Ce fut une importante découverte personnelle car je me trouvais enfin lies a mes ancêtres et a mes contemporains. Enfin je pouvais cultiver cet héritage et lui donner corps, enfin je pouvais éclairer cette partie de moi même assombrie par une histoire que j’ai si longtemps ignore. Enfin, je pouvais partager cet inconscient collectif. Plus encore, cela m’a offert l’assise et la force nécessaire pour refuser toutes conventions cinématographiques, car si ce langage est neuf et ouvert, cela signifie que j’ai la liberté de l’inventer et que j’ai le devoir de ne jamais oublier que personne ne peu m’imposer la façon dont mon esprit s’exprime.

Oui, l’image en mouvement me donne la faculté de parler l’esprit de mes ancêtres sans en parler la langue.

Oui, le cinéma sera la voix de ma poésie.

Je sais dorénavant que je peux porter témoignage de ces siècles, de ces vies, de ces gestes qui en s’accumulant nous ont donnes naissance. Je sais maintenant qu’il n’y aura pas de vide entre moi et les générations futures. Je construis pierre à pierre, un pont modeste, mais solide qui permettra a ce qui le désir de joindre les rives du passe et du présent.

Il y aura dans un coin de Bretagne, la preuve, que l’esprit Breton ne connait ni répit, ni frontière, ni limites. Qu’il est vivant, unique, que ces racines s’ancrent dans le passé et que ces feuilles se nourrissent de lumière et d’air pur.

_______________________________________________________________________________________—

Bretagne needs its own cinema

Cinema is a new language, a new territory for those who, like me, felt that they did not have the right words, the right sentences to express themselves. All those colours, all those feelings, all those rhythms, all those stories, which are the heart of our identities and of our spirits, cannot live if they are no name. I cannot talk Breton and I have not found a language capable of translating my nature into words.

For a long time, I wondered why my movies were so peculiar. Slowly I understood that they were so because they were the reflection of different identities, an old one which could speak, though cinema to the world. My spirit could talk.

This was a great discovery for me because I finally found the way to link myself, my ancestors and my people. I could finally let my identity talk its own language, give it flesh and bones and set light upon a part of myself that stayed so long in the shadows of an history I ignored. Most of all, it gave me the energy to refuse all movie convention because it this language was indeed new, then I had the freedom to invent it and the duty never to forget that nobody and nothing can force a way of expression upon my spirit.

Yes, motion pictures give me the power to speak the spirit of my ancestors without talking they language.

Yes, cinema is the voice of my poetry.

I know now that i can be the witness of those centuries, of those lives, of those details which gave us birth. I know that there will be no gap between me and the next generations. I am slowly building a little and modest bridge over time so that, the one who wants, will be able to join our future and our past.

There will be a place in Bretagne where the proof will lay. The proof that the Breton spirit knows no boundaries or death that it is alive, that its roots reach deep down into history and that its leaves feed with light and wind.

Download (PDF, 4.46MB)

Click here to view the embedded video.

The sequence worked are done except sound work. I need to put extra work in the crossing sequence which is quite complicated to edit.
On the screen shot, the column on the right shows the duration of each sequence.

• Crossing : crossing of the river
• foxes : moment with larus talking about and around ancient foxes nests
• Gathering1 : a sequence that shows a nice part of the gathering with beautiful shots on horse
• Larus : on top of the lava with Larus
• Sverir : short sequence with Sverir (seen on the blog)
• walking intro : the intro shot of the walking lava sequence
• Walking lava : walking in the lava.

Click here to view the embedded video.