PETRA ZOEPNEK

This experimental film is a memorial leap. Underwater models stand in for Lotte, or rather: They jump in for her. They jump into the Old Danube and go searching, in a state of floating, before they rise again, transformated, in the Red Sea. Their body parts and limbs flicker, become blurred. The movements of all the divers, of water, air and mysterious plants turn into a collective action. The film plays with fast changes, with the esthetics of chance, its poetry is celebration and disappointment at the same time, the breathless editing fools the slow eye. Among the many underwater actors there is Nicola Raunig, the granddaughter of Lotte Hass, but the – temporally – central figure is Herbert Nitsch, world champion in free diving. His appearing and immersing divides the film in two parts, a shark follows him, then the scene has changed, from the Old Danube to the Red Sea. Nitsch can stay under water without breathing for nine minutes and four seconds, that’s exactly the length of this film: an exploration of the deep and unknown, of courage and passion.