This short film explores the entan­gle­ments of smoke and pixels, trees and humans, loss and recov­ery. When the film­mak­er dives into a burnt forest in Oregon, U.S.A., memory and place begin to unrav­el. Her voice shares per­son­al reflec­tions on loss while glimpses of bare soil, rock for­ma­tions and moun­tains form new hori­zons. A mon­tage of found footage, Google Maps explo­rations, and mate­r­i­al record­ed during field­work form a new nar­ra­tive. The film plays with ideas of fic­tion and real­i­ty and ques­tions our rela­tion­ship with the on- and offline envi­ron­ments we inhabit.

This film will be screened simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at Con­flic­to­ri­um as part of our #Junction_Ahmedabad, fol­lowed by a shared discussion.

Suzanne Schaaf holds a bach­e­lor in the­atre direct­ing and teach­ing (Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts), and a master’s degree in visual anthro­pol­o­gy (UvA). She has an inter­est in artis­tic research and site spe­cif­ic the­atre. Her work is often con­nect­ed to place­mak­ing, memory, land­scape and tran­si­tion. She prefers to work inter­dis­ci­pli­nary when doing research, where the out­come isn’t fixed on one form or prod­uct but rather depends on the research process. She grew up in the Nether­lands, but has devel­oped a strong con­nec­tion with the United States where most of her family comes from.