First we hear a crackling sound, then a diffuse orange light glows in the darkness. A siren growing louder and the sound of a helicopter instantly mark the scene as a place of danger. There is a fire. First in the distance, a moment later everywhere. Trees and palms go up in flames. The fire’s power is immense. The firefighters and everyone else who is fighting the wildfires around Los Angeles act with remarkable calm. Nobody is running, the communication chain is working smoothly, TV reporters are broadcasting live, helpers are setting up emergency shelters, taking care of injured animals, cutting fire lines in front of neighbours’ homes. A tried-and-tested routine, efficiency and a great willingness to help. The crisis seems to bring out the best in the people. This uncommented observation is also a tribute to their commitment. But the longer it goes on, the more the question arises why solidarity and sustainable action seem to work in emergencies, while it seems impossible to tackle the crisis before it becomes an inferno. The film’s cinematic meditation on pyropolitics takes a look at our age of multiple crises. The permanent global fire management makes it easy to forget that behind those fires lie geopolitical causes that must be dealt with – not with water, but with political decisions.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

A distant wood thrush is singing against the pitch-black backdrop of the image. A fly acoustically approaches with a massive, bass-heavy hum, abruptly stopped in its flight by the sound of a crash. Sounds so familiar that we are usually not even aware of them provided the main sonic material for the renowned sound designer Claude Beaugrand. His long-standing artist friend, filmmaker Pierre Hébert, dedicated his five animated fugues to him. Field recordings like those of the bird and insect derive their vitality from their recognisability through repetition, as well as from their ephemeral nature, with its random inflections and variations. Hébert forms a sonic body through stretching, echo loops and granulated sounds. And he scratches directly onto the film material, working against the physical resistance of the emulsion. Each “brushstroke” created this way has an unpredictable, intuitive element. Each powerful or tender graphic gesture radiates vitality. Just as the thrush and the fly meet acoustically, abstract bundles of lines flutter nervously on the surface of the screen and into its depth, circling the pared-down silhouette of a human being in free fall. Intertitles lyrically describe a pain that must be expressed but for which there are no direct words. “Prelude and Fugues – The Wood Thrush” is an indescribable experience of choreographed sounds, an inner cinema born of the delicate essence of animation and the irresistible enticement to listen intently.

André Eckardt