Maya Schweizer
2021Insolite
Maya Schweizer
„Insolite“, sounds like a name of a stone but means odd, unsual. A series of images, following no narrative, becomes an enumeration of places in high tension, under surveillance and covered in lava. Is the mountain living or is it fear that creates the illusion of underground tremors?
Insolite
Passing Down, Frame One
Maya Schweizer
The artist reconstructs fragmentary memories of her Jewish grandmother, who avoided being deported from Lyon in 1944 thanks to a misunderstanding. The film moves between France and Germany, and between the 1940s and Schweizer’s everyday life today.
Passing Down, Frame One
Le soldat mourant des Milles
Maya Schweizer
“`The Dying Soldier of Les Milles` observes both the memorial site Le Camp des Milles (…) and the monument of a dying soldier dedicated to the dead soldiers of World Wars I and II as well as the Algerian War. (…) The camera wanders around the soldier and the square.” (Thomas Klipper)
The Dying Soldier of Les Milles
Voices and Shells
Maya Schweizer
Voices echo through sewer tunnels in Munich. They tell fragments of stories about vanished people, violence and memory loss while the camera moves above ground, scanning the city’s façades. Munich appears as a body winding its way through time.
Voices and Shells
A Memorial, a Synagogue, a Bridge and a Church
Maya Schweizer
A square is turned into a laboratory setting, the artist into a meticulous observer of everyday situations. The location is "Fish Square", Rybné námestie, Bratislava. Here stands the "Holocaust Monument", a bronze statue by Slovakian artist Milan Lukáč.
A Memorial, a Synagogue, a Bridge and a Church
From the Classroom
Maya Schweizer
Left screen: girls dancing in front of a blackboard in a Tehran classroom (Source: YouTube). Right screen: video still of the blackboard without people, changing text projections which tell the story of the daily routine of a young woman in Tehran.
From the Classroom
Sur le dos de la carte postale
Maya Schweizer
The camera observes a street vendor on the square underneath the Eiffel Tower laying out his goods for the tourists. The situation is explained from the point of view of a policeman who tries to drive the vendors from the square.
On the Back of the Postcard
Texture of Oblivion
Maya Schweizer
The film begins with footage of a city of ruins, when the entire cityscape of Warsaw is covered with stones. It is 1945. Themed around stones as carriers of historical memory, the movie is so closely filmed that the viewer can never see the city's memorials in their entirety.
Texture of Oblivion
Regarde par ici,...Und dort die Puschkinallee
Maya Schweizer
The camera’s gaze rises high above an area in Berlin, where the paths of tourists, homeless people, passersby and police officers cross. We are in a watchtower that once controlled the no man’s land where East and West collided.
Regarde par ici,...Und dort die Puschkinallee
I, an Archeologist
Maya Schweizer
We’re on a tour through the Jewish catacombs of Rome. The archaeologist’s fragmentary narration is interspersed with directions to the lighting technician. We never see a complete image: our understanding of history is determined by its representation.
I, an Archeologist