https://player.vimeo.com/video/441820723?autoplay=1&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

The Beach

“The Beach” is a poetic reflection on life by a young woman. While roaming the beach, she lets her mind run free. We follow her and so, for a few brief moments, we are able to glimpse into her headspace and see the world through her eyes. The beach itself becomes a character of its own as it stands for the one place of longing we all have, the one place we always return to when we need to take a break to be alone with ourselves. A place where past, present and future mingle.

This short film has been made for the 2020 edition of the renowned Straight 8 competition in London. Doing a Straight 8 film means that you shoot a whole film on one cartridge of super 8 with only in-camera edits and an original score produced blindly.

Filmed on location in St. Peter-Böhl at the North Sea coast in Germany in August 2019.

Credits / Collaborators / Cast

A film by LARS KEMNITZ | larskemnitz.com
Starring HEIDRUN FIEDLER | heidrunfiedler.com
Special thanks to ANGELINA KAMP

Shot on KODAK VISION3 50D super 8 film stock
Processing and telecine by Cinelab London, UK

Director Statement

For my second Straight 8 film I wanted to create a poetic story which is driven by a voiceover. I wrote the text during bus rides in summer 2019 and convinced my long-time collaborator, friend and talented actress Heidrun to take over the role of the woman who roams the beach while reflecting on her life.

We recorded the text before shooting and I arranged it to make it fit into the 03:20 minutes that one cartridge of super 8 allowed us. The text became the guideline for the visuals and for the timing in general. We shot the scenes on location at the North Sea coast here in Germany in the beginning of August 2019 and shortly after that I sent the exposed cartridge off to London for the Straight 8 team to develop it and match it with the audio track. And almost a year later I saw the film for the very first time.

The world has changed heavily, but for me the film feels now even more relevant than last year. That may be due to the fact that Covid-19 brought back this longing to escape reality for a moment, to embrace nature and home and find peace with oneself.