Anyone interned in the Nazi Jewish transit and collection camp Westerbork in the occupied Netherlands faced death: The trains left to Auschwitz from here, to Sobibór. In 1944, the camp commander ordered the prisoner and cameraman Rudolf Breslauer, who was murdered shortly afterwards, to film the camp, presumably as visual evidence of his own “work performance”. Harun Farocki, West German doyen of essayistic image criticism, used the surviving silent material to compose an equally silent sequence analysis commented only in title cards. It is surgery on the hidden narrative, not open heart surgery.

The Mexican island of Capaluco was once home to a flourishing holiday resort. Now it is deserted. The tides are chipping away at the ruins of the amusement park and hotel complex. Sensory explorations of the terrain meet tales of a mythical sea monster from the Philippines that ended up here. Beguiling science fiction in the mirror of post-humanist theory.

“Welcome to Capaluco, the only all-inclusive island in the world! A place where fun is guaranteed for the whole family,” echoes from the loudspeakers. Gaudy dolphin sculptures stare into space. A crumbling Nestlé emblem reminds us of the glory days of an out-of-date civilization. Miko Revereza and Carolina Fusilier stage their location as an in-between place where the past reverberates and the future pushes its way in. In the meticulous observation of formations and textures, architecture and nature begin to converge. Is that still the droning of a radio mast or is it the ocean? The two directors speculate from offscreen who will be next to make use of the relics of the human empire in the relay race of the species.