SOUVENIR OF ABSENCE

Inspired by both her own memories and those of others, Maral Müdok’s essayistic short film explores the themes of temporality and absence in family relationships. We hear her grandmother reciting the evening prayer and see images of her grave in Turkey. Places, languages and sounds are combined into a poetic whole in which deliberately chosen non-images are central. The montage generates a gripping stream of thought. Archive footage of comets, butterflies and human voices forms a contrast with the experimental sequences: VHS and voice recordings create impossible, time-spanning dialogues. Souvenir of Absence shows presence as absence and vice versa. In so doing, Müdok connects past and present into a deep, calm continuity.

• Emiliano Proietti*