(2024, 78 minutes)
A film essay delving into the essence of photography, intrinsically incomplete, lacking, fractional. All images inherently reach beyond their boundaries—this is a truth rooted in history and made even more evident in our current age, dominated by the astonishing and decisive powers of artificial intelligence.

The film’s core utilizes a collection of personal photographs of the filmmaker's mother and family. The film is a reading of the images as family history, as socio-political history, as a history of the photographic ‘snap shot"—of symptoms and ailments (societal and personal), of the imaging of the self, of death, of immortality, of love, and of art — and as a personal psychoanalytical tell of a son to his mother.

The work is informed by Walter Benjamin’s conceptualization of the ‘optical unconscious’ of photography' which underpins photography's enigma. We also utilize Ernst Jünger's exploration, penned during the interwar period, that unravels the photograph as a self-objectifying mechanism. Important photographic milestones from George Eastman to Nadar to Jeff Wall to Ansel Adams and others are used as hinges to open up the mind’s eye to the philosophical complexity and sociological relevance of the photographic image.

Ultimately the film is a reflection on the act of reflection itself. It unveils the myriad dimensions of the image, illuminated through the prism of deeply personal vignettes — none more intimate than the portrayal of the artist's own mother. Here, the umbilical cord of identity converges with a burst of latent potentials, poised for their imminent emergence.

Director and Producer: Oliver Hockenhull

Quality Digital Print available for screenings, gallery presentations and exhibitions.