2K video (2:1), 25 fps, colour and black & white, sound, no dialogue, 26 minutes — 2027
Distributed by sixpackfilm 

SYNOPSIS
The experimental short film follows the vector between archaeology and astronomy – two disciplines that look in opposite directions yet pursue the same question: how can the past be read in order to orient ourselves in the present and imagine the future? At observatories, ruins, and scientific sites across different epochs in Armenia and Turkey, sky and earth, knowledge and myth intersect. In a fragmented field of observation and speculative temporal leaps, the film explores the human desire to measure the infinite – in which, through recurring attempts, progress itself becomes transient and once stable certainties dissolve into fragments.

SHORT DESCRIPTION
The film travels along the vector of archaeology and astronomy – two scientific disciplines that direct their gaze into the void. While astronomy turns towards the seemingly infinite vastness of outer space in order to interpret cosmic processes through the light of distant celestial bodies, archaeology turns towards the earth to uncover history in the sediments of human remains. Both disciplines are united by a search in the past in order to orient themselves in the present and to imagine the future as possibility. The further their gaze extends across space and time, the more unreadable the signs become, and the greater the space for interpretation.

Observatories and scientific sites in Armenia and Turkey form the protagonists of the film and point, like index fingers, to the region’s long tradition of sky observation. They are material testimonies to different orders of knowledge and appear as nodal points along this vector, where sky and earth, past and present intersect, and where scientific knowledge overlaps with mythological interpretation.

The film moves, among other places, to what is said to be the world’s oldest observatory, the approximately 7,500-year-old Armenian Stonehenge of Carahunge; to the radio-optical telescope ROT54, a Soviet-era instrument that likely combined optical and radio astronomy for the first time; to the Sevsar Observatory with its prehistoric stone engravings in the Armenian highlands; to the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory with its still scientifically relevant sky surveys; and to the monument Nemrut Dağı, an artificial conical mound of stone in present-day Turkey, whose interior remains unknown.

Ruins become monuments in which silent decay renders progress itself transient, and the traces of former certainties dissolve into fragments. They express humanity’s cultural positioning within the cosmos and the recurring attempt to measure the infinite – thereby revealing its own finitude. Speculative leaps in time connect these observations into a fragmentary cinematic structure that opens up gaps beyond the visible and the audible.

SOURCES
The film combines self-produced image and sound material with found footage from archaeological and astronomical archives.

CREDITS
Concept, Research, Direction: Katharina Bayer
Editor: Katharina Bayer
Director of Photography: Jyrgen Ueberschär
Sound Design: Toni Schlesinger, Katharina Bayer
Field Recordings: Jyrgen Ueberschär
Re-recording Mixer: Matthias Schwab
Colour Grading and Titles: Jyrgen Ueberschär
Dramaturgical Consultant: Janina Herhoffer
Conceptual Text Development: Clemens J. Setz
Artistic Mentors: Clemens v. Wedemeyer, Mareike Bernien

FUNDINGS
Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport (BMWKMS)
Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony (KdFS)