A visual that plays like a dream about crossing borders and the adventure the word “future” holds. Rooted in a family story of a journey on foot to the Netherlands, it flips the visual language of thermal border surveillance into something human.
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The visual mirrors a dream, the dream about the adventure that the word future holds. Like a child’s dream, it roams in multiple emotions, soaking up a narrative and processing this in this dream visual. The heat of the landscape Sevdaliza has to cross made me think about the mirage effect life sometimes throws into your field of vision, whether this is a Fata Morgana to keep you going or things might just not be what they seem.
In a world with man-made borders deciding the fate of your life, Only few take the risk to cross them, in boats, by land, hiding in plain sight or hidden in an empty compartment of a truck. Leaving a burning house, facing the judgment of your new neighbour. They are risking it all for a possible mirage of safety. Sevdaliza told me her story of her father and mother fleeing with her as a child from the deadly Iranian regime over an oat milk iced latte in a trendy coffee shop.As a lot of conversation we have, she told her story of being smuggled in the back of a truck out of Iran like they were just getting a carton of milk: as if of no importance. Finished my coffee and left, the image of the young Sevdaliza in the back of a truck stuck to me.
My grandfather walked from the Russian Ukraine (USSR) border to the Netherlands at the age of just five years old. The resilience of the human condition in times of need is unlimited. Many years later, I find myself, as a firm believer in generational trauma, still struggling to weave the fragments of sorrow into enlightenment.
It culminates in this piece, blending light and dark into what could all be fake, possibly trading darkness for the farce of capitalism, as shown in the final scene of this script.
Sevdaliza vigilant but with the feeling that no human lives. She roams the empty steppe. The camera switches perspective into Infrared camera. For those who don’t know, infrared is a spectrum of vision which we are unable to see with our human eyes. Technically, it’s too slow of a wavelength for us, but some animals like snakes, birds and other predators can see in this dimension. It is best described as high contrast black and white differentiation of warm and cold spots.
In modern-day battlefield, borders, and high-threat security situations, border agents and special operation soldiers around the world use this scientific wonder in all sorts of devices from cameras to night vision goggles to spot well in their eyes.
With us utilizing this technique, we flip the tool, by giving it a new perception. The hunted becomes the hunter.In the middle of the volcano, Sevdaliza carefully opens the sled, unwraps her son, and for the first time in her artistic career reveals her son to the world. A melancholic moment cuts to a house in the Netherlands, to a posh villa in the woods. An older lady and her husband open the doors, which swing open as they welcome the camera (read: viewer) into their house.
