An artificial monolith appears solid and durable, created and left to stand there forever. But it wasn’t only people and their tools, who shaped it. Before and after this creation geological forces, wind and water or even animals (in other words: the ravages of time) did their bit. Not to forget those, who didn’t actually work the stone, but motivating people to do it: Gods and their human representatives. There are much easier ways to build something than carving it out of one single stone. Only a strong social and spiritual impetus makes people create something practically useless like an Egyptian obelisk or the Moai heads on Rapa Nui, or excessively laborious like the Rock-hewn churches of Lalibella, Ethiopia.
It’s this kind of extravagance we want to refer to. Also films (and any other piece of art) are practically useless. They do not make our life easier. Instead, they show us other lifes, of which many never happened. Therefore making and watching films could be considered as spiritual acts of transcendence. And just like in a religious ritual, where priests, believers (and the gods) depend on each other, also art is sympoietic. The artist (let’s imagine a woman) might be the only one crafting a certain piece, but she can’t control how people look at her work and what they make out of it. Neither can she be aware of all the incidents in cultural history (or even in her own biography) that make her create her piece the way she does. And then, she can never anticipate what the creative act or her creation and the people’s reaction to it will do to herself.
The artist is a collector and catalyzer. While embracing whatever helps shaping the monolith (might it be an actor’s idea or the weather on the shooting-day), all elements should connect with the initial poetic vision.
Many industrial-made films today look like there’s a bunch of people with completely different agendas (e.g. commercial, political, educational) trying to make different films while making only one. Instead, monolithical filmmaking does not involve „rationally“ contaminated decisions. However you shape the surface, you must never touch the core.
Monolithic filmmaking refers to the freemason’s idea of the individual as a stone that needs to be carved. Filmmaking is contemporary alchemy. By refining the material you also refine yourself.
A good film also changes the maker. It’s a catharsis.
Contact_
References/Films_
In 2024 we published MENARIS, a novel by Jessica Oswald. An English version will be published in 2025.
From 2022-2024 we produced INCREATA, a short film by Ben Brummer – festival premiere tba
From 2023-2024 we produced BLUE ALMONDS, a short film by Nicole Huminski – in postproduction
In 2018 we distributed FEIERABENDBIER, a feature by Ben Brummer – premiered at Berlinale 2018