A series of tuba thefts that occurred ten years ago at Californian schools is the starting point of a multilayered and entertaining reflection about sounds and music, how they are represented in images and described in words. The artist Alison O’Daniel tells the story from the perspective of Deaf people; her film resembles a musical composition that varies its material in several movements.

In one sequence we hear the swelling drone of a passenger plane flying at low altitude over a residential area and gradually drowning out the sounds of the wind before we first see its shadow glide over the houses and at last the source of the noise. The subtitles, an integral part of this film, not only describe the sounds in amazing precision but also quantify their acoustic pressure in decibels.

Alternating between passages with and without sound motivates us to be more differentiated, focused, targeted in our perception. The film revolves around the motifs of hearing, sounds, noise pollution more than around the narrative of the mysteriously vanished tubas, more even than around the impressive protagonist Nyeisha “Nyke” Prince who plays a Deaf drummer in “The Tuba Thieves.” The tuba thefts are first and foremost a metaphor: What does the lack of a specific sound do to our perception?

As a philosopher, Frenchman Bruno Latour (1947–2022) opened not only rooms of reflection but whole houses. An anthropologist and sociologist, he became an internationally renowned advocate for shifting paradigms, with the aim of re-defining the place of the human individual in the cycle of nature. Latour coined the term “ecological class,” to be created on planet earth to become aware of fundamental options for action in crises. But: How do we react to his questions, visions, and concepts in our daily life, far removed from science and philosophy? Do they reach us? Do they spark debates when we encounter them?
Raphaël Girardot and Vincent Gaullier found individuals in France, Belgium and Senegal who want to go their own way in observing, describing and changing conditions, or already do so in communities – on fields and in forests, fishing or protesting, as autonomous beings or in familiar structures. The directors confront some of them with Latour’s writings, trigger thoughts and conversations and let Bruno Latour himself guide us through the episodes in short interview sequences from the internet. Increasingly marked by his cancer, he shows himself to be a precise analyst with verve, humour, and clear statements.