Spring equinox 2024: 20 March at three hours, six minutes, twenty-one seconds (GMT). Vattetot-sur-Mer, in the Pays de Caux region of Normandy. Gaza is being bombed…
On 27 February 2024, like many other filmmakers and artists, I received a message from Narimane Mari inviting me to make a cinematic gesture rooted in Palestine — something that would bear witness to what is blotted out on the screens of History, when thousands of lives are targeted by Israeli airstrikes, forbidden from living on their land. But how, from so far away, can we share in the fear of death? How can one resist the world’s greatest misfortunes from one’s own garden? I imagined an action where I would move as little as possible. I filmed one minute per hour, for twenty-four hours, on the first day of spring, never once moving the camera from its position… Amid the wonder of spring — which plants, animals and humans all enjoy — bombs fall in the distance and echo inside the head. No real silence, no rest! (Pierre Creton)
