Laborat

Experimental Documentary

Collaboration with Guillaume Cailleau
CaSk Films 2014

A mouse is put to sleep, operated on, scanned in MRI, vivisected. It dies. It is a standard procedure in a lab, a meticulous routine. Single gestures are repeated over an over again. It is impossible to tell them apart, as it is impossible to tell apart, or count, the mice subject to them. A small film crew documents the work of the lab crew. Both crews follow their own protocol, preoccupied by their tools, their repeated actions. A film is constructed which documents scientific experiments, but also experiments with its own complicity in the procedures: it dissects itself and makes it‘s own structure apparent. Between the lines, the distance to the object is lifted. The object becomes the subject, the viewer an accomplice. The images are seductive, the discomfort overwhelming. (Uli Ziemons)

Laborat received the Silver Bear for Short Film at Berlinale 2014.