Bewegungen eines nahen Bergs

In his third feature, Sebastian Brameshuber purposefully recycles some images from Of Stains, Scrap and Tires (2014), a 16mm short filmed in the same car business nestled at the foot of the Austrian Alps, below the mists of Erzberg, one of the country’s largest iron ore deposits mined since Roman times. Here, nothing dies completely, everything is reused, recovered and remembered. Cliff, a Nigerian mechanic, tours car parks looking for vehicles to recondition and break up, which he then sells or exports as spare parts. Formerly, his large three-walled depot opened onto a paintball field; but now most of the customers on his horizon are from Eastern Europe, and Africa, where his parts find a small market. The calm observation, listening and exploration of labour, materials, exchanges and territories are what connects this Nigerian microcosm to economic relations across Europe and Africa. Through his materialist approach, Brameshuber links the exploitation of iron to the earth spirits and contemporary leisure activities. While the sound track of Nigerian forests is superimposed on the images of Austrian peri-urban areas, the owner recounts a founding myth that, underneath its ironic promises of eternity, speaks of the depletion of terrestrial resources, be it an imminent end or new beginnings.

Antoine Thirion