DIETER BEYELSCHMIDT
it will be true forever
2023
Ultra HD (4K) color video, 2-ch sound, 6:37 min [➚]
Director · Writer · Sound : Rosy Beyelschmidt
Camera · VFX · Editor : Dieter Beyelschmidt
... describes an experience from my early childhood. A childless couple, relatives of my mother, believed it would be a gift for a city child to spend a few weeks in the countryside. They owned a stately home near their vineyards. With a clear conscience, my parents left me in the care of this rural family for 4 weeks. Upon arrival, I looked with fearful eyes at the multitude of cotton-like webs and nests - spiders; luckily, I thought they were far away, as the walls of the grand house were relatively high. Unfortunately, my suitcase wasn't in the room I was allowed to live in; my room was under the roof, lower but just as well stocked with 'candy floss' as the high room.
There was also my uncle Willi, a man with huge hands and wide-open eyes when he smiled. Will, as my aunt called him, was a mushroom lover, a mushroom researcher. Every day, something with mushrooms was served at meals to everyone's delight, and he particularly enjoyed drowning the mushrooms in his sauce inventions. As an expression of his feelings of happiness, a deep, fervent grunt could be heard, combined with the words 'gives strength'.
What has faded is how I spent the days; mostly I was with 'Mu', the chain dog. Something connected us. But what will never fade are the nightmares about the mushrooms chased me nightly. I saw myself caught in sticky spider traps, saw flashing mushroom lamps, like a fairground lights, columns of mushrooms marching towards me. Luckily for me, my parents came a week early, for scheduling reasons they must have said, because uncle and aunt had obviously meant well. Maybe my parents had some insight and sensed during the phone calls with me that something wasn't right.
XXVIIe Rencontres Internationales Traverse, Toulouse, FR, en mars 2024 – Art expérimental
at: • Cabinet des Curiosités Cinémathèque de Toulouse
• Lycée Ozenne (Installation)