Walden

by Daniel Zimmermann Focus Competition

Somewhere in an Austrian forest birds are cheerfully chirping. When suddenly the idyll is broken as a chainsaw screeches into action and cuts into the trees and brings a fir tree to the ground. After the wood has been processed into 1000 strips, it is taken on a long journey – train, ship and truck – which eventually ends in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest, of all places. How do we deal with our own habitat on a daily basis? With his precisely choreographed film shot using thirteen 360-degree cameras, director Daniel Zimmermann comments in a meditative and subtle way on the absurd economic logic of our globalised world, as well as the way in which natural resources are being handled. Each of the thirteen sequences documents one step of the process. The result is a unique, formally challenging "road movie" of a different kind, particularly impressive on the big screen.