A place in this galaxy

Concept, screenplay, direction: Alvaro Petricig
Cinematography and editing: Paolo Comuzzi
Sound: Renato Rinaldi
Starring: Anja Medved
Music: Renato Rinaldi, Ado Paolo Peressutti, and Cabaret Voltaire
Production: Zavod Kinoatelje & Kinoatelje, 2010
Language: Slovenian
Format: HDV (16:9), stereo, 47 min.
Release year: 2011

Synopsis

While preparing for the documentary titled A Place in This Galaxy, the director suddenly passes away. The film was meant to explore the increasingly complex relationships between personal memories and images – photographs and videos. Through reflections on the presumed documentary and objective reality of images, the film questions the status of testimonies on which collective memory is built.

The director’s friend, also a documentary filmmaker, decides to finish his unfinished project. She bases her work on the materials found in his apartment: a few pages of a fragmented and incomplete script, a pile of disorganized and nearly illegible notes, footage and photographs uncovered from drawers and shelves, some seemingly disconnected and mysterious scenes, literary quotes, personal memories, thoughts, and scattered questions that arise during a period of waiting in dead time.

Director's Comment

“With A Place in This Galaxy, we wanted to leave our small footsteps in the footsteps of some greats – Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, and even James Joyce – with the awareness that our path will never reach the tip of one of their steps.

Like in architecture, if we want the house to be stable, we must use building materials that are ultimately always the same; in the case of local architecture, these are the materials found on-site: stone, wood, clay... (family videos, photo albums, the contents of our own drawers...).

And yet, in the end, every building is different, and that is the only important thing.”