ODERLAND. FONTANE

Bernhard Sallman’s films are solitaires. They elude all conventions, formats and practices. You must open yourself to them. It’s clear from the first image: this is a kind of cinema that has other virtues than narrative and entertainment. The enjoyment comes from concentration and contemplation. The images, arranged as still lives, are rigorously framed and composed so that subtle movements become visible only after long contemplation – sometimes a cloud, sometimes the trembling of leaves. After his Lusatian trilogy the Berlin-based Austrian was drawn to Brandenburg once again: to the Oderbruch, an edenic but treacherous landscape. It’s a cultivated landscape, created by man in the 18th century.