DK (2010), 22min, 16mm
Direction / Production: Johanna Domke
Editing: Angelika von Chamier
Scenography / Costume: Katrin Gerheuser
Sound: Bilgehan Öziş
Supported by: Kunstrådet, Vestjyllands Artmuseum
Premiere: Future Shorts Kopenhagen (December 2009)
Festivals: Rencontre International Madrid (April 2010)
Shot in Sorø, Danmark
Synopsis:
„Søen i spejlet“ (“Lake in the Mirror“) deals with nature as a refuge
where the rules and hierarchies of society are put out of play – at
least until new hierarchies and rituals start regulating the refuge.
The film is the re-enactment of a former boarding school tradition in
Denmark. Once a year the students of Sorø Academy held a ritual out in
the woods, burning effigies of their teachers on a bonfire.
The narrative of the film evolves around the character of a former
student that revisits the place of his school days meeting with a group
of young students. What first seems to be the fictionalization of the
former student´s memory, becomes more and more the documentation of the
staging of the ritual – the alumni himself being the director. But as
soon as the ritual sets off, all turns to a different state of realness,
as the anger and emotion of the young students boil up to an uncanny
level of authenticity.