Between the 1970s and the 1990s, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany produced a series of educational films designed to present a wide range of professions in meticulous detail. In OVERWORK, Céline Berger breathes new life into this archival material.
In a 16mm film worn by time, images of nature appear. First trees, then animals. From the very beginning, an opening rhythm can be heard in the soundtrack. We enter the world of work, found footage from instructional films by the German Employment Agency. The image seems to follow the sound, but still relaxed. Without us being able to immediately pinpoint the moment of change, we are thrown into a vertiginous rhythm. The image fits into the manual gestures of each job, the rapid cuts create immediate associations between images, and the sound times these movements. In the flow, the sound follows the image as much as the image follows the sound. A collage of the gestures of the trade that seeks to uncover all its hidden rhythms (and the clashes between them). (Vasco Muralha)
