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A Dying Leaf Should Be Able to Carry the Weight of the World

Thea Lazăr
Romania
10’ 15"

A Dying Leaf Should Be Able to Carry the Weight of the World is a visit to the botanical garden and museum in Cluj-Napoca, a journey through time and space, a discovery of plants with unknown stories, of plants that don’t exist anymore, of plants that can tell us as much about the past as they can about the future. Fossils, herbs and botanical illustrations are witnesses of the past, proof of evolution and change, but also prophets of what is yet to come.



A visit at a botanical museum in Cluj, 2023; a close look through a tourist booklet about the same museum, published in 1979. In Thea Lazăr’s film, the voiceover animates an open essay, a mix of poetry and theory, about, on the one hand, the power of botanical conservation as a science, and, on the other, the ideological limits of museum practices: the violence of knowledge. Lazăr exalts the image of plants, the magical understanding of them, as a self-existing landscape, and not as a mere backdrop for human civilization. The film’s climax bears fruit to that thought when the images of the greenhouse turn abstract, melting into 3D animations of a wild landscape: the revenge of the moving image against the culturally fixed one. (Călin Boto)

 

Screening date and location

September 28th, 6:30 PM, Cinemateca Eforie

Tickets

Awards & Festivals

Thea Lazăr

Thea Lazăr lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Her practice includes a wide range of media, from textiles and goblins to multimedia installations, video and 3D animation. Her works often straddle the border between traditional media and contemporary technologies, and focus on stories that reflect both personal and universal narratives. Through the juxtaposition of nature and technology, she emphasizes the tension between the organic and the manufactured, looking at their coexistence. Nature, in particular local and endemic plants, are a significant subject of inspiration in her artistic practice, but she often also turns her attention to machines and auto components, examining them through a nostalgic lens. 



  • Technical sheet
  • Director: Thea Lazăr
  • Voice-over: Larisa Crunțeanu și Casper Chatelier
  • Sound mixing & mastering: loan Filip

Screens

National Competition 2

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A Dying Leaf Should Be Able to Carry the Weight of the World

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A Dying Leaf Should Be Able to Carry the Weight of the World is a visit to the botanical garden and museum in Cluj-Napoca, a journey through time and space, a discovery of plants with unknown stories, of plants that don't exist anymore, of plants that can tell us as much about the past as they can about the future. Fossils, herbs and botanical illustrations are witnesses of the past, proof of evolution and change, but also prophets of what is yet to come.

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