The Dunes Said

Helmholtz' scientific formula on how sand dunes are formed becomes the intuitive structure for the film in which various images and different ways of reporting and storytelling intertwine and lay open the roles that shape the stories we tell.

Set in the Argentinian coastal town Villa Gesell, built on sand dunes in the 1930s, “The Dunes Said” delves into the town's origins, creating a parallel fiction in which an interrupted report on sand dune memory opens up to let us ponder wider themes of the relationship between humans and nature and how history is created.

Images of the town itself and the sand dunes that still surround it and archive footage from the municipal museum encounter various other footage of people investigating nature. The sound level is alive on its own: combining nature sounds like the clipping of a pine cone to industrial human made sounds, “The Dunes Said” also becomes a sensory impression.