Letter from Here, or: Unmarked Space

Long shots of Brooklyn streetscapes reveal perspectives of streets and sidewalks, many of them with the perspective towards Manhattan or the sea.
A female voice-over is reading a letter to a fictitious, yet possible grandfather, whose traces were lost in the United States. The search for this figure becomes a surrogate for the typical immigration myth and both the immigrant background of Americans, and the projection of desire into another country, another life, another way of being. This narrative is dealing poetically with the question of desire projected in the mythical land of the free, and in contrast its day-to-day reality. Personal memory and collective memory mix up with fragments of legends and observations of reality. Through this palimpsest of text and image, the city of New York and its myths such as the melting pot, the land of the free etc. become an open projection space which is included in the narrative, but at the same time questioned by both fictitious, personal and legendary elements.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Bettina Hutschek
• Brooklyn
• New York
• letter
• narrative
• narration
• palimpest
• memory
• collective memory
• personal memory
• land of the free
• myth