The song performed by the heroine of the film is a sung history of climate change based on official meteorological data from the period 1722–2022. The singer bases her performance only on high and low tones. Higher sounds mean seasons that are too warm, while lower sounds mean seasons that are too cold.
Liliana Zeic is inspired by two figures in her work. The first is Gottfried Reyger, an 18th-century botanist and meteorologist who systematically conducted weather observations in the Gdańsk area. The second person is Benita Cempel, a fortune teller, palmist and geography teacher, who hosted the program “From magic to science” on Sky Orunia television in the 1990s. This non-obvious combination was used by the artist to create a character that combines the figure of a teacher, a researcher, an observer looking at the sky, a seer and a fortune teller.
The work intertwines climatology and palmistry: sky reading and palm reading. Liliana offers us the vision of a climatologist-soothsayer who talks about weather changes using the language of magic. At the same time, she asks questions: what will happen when from the mouth of a person who is supposed to talk about scientific facts, we hear a voice that ignores the intellect and speaks straight to the heart? Will we believe the fortune teller, or will there be something waiting inside us for the teacher hidden inside? How does the language of magic differ from the language of science? And finally: what code should we use to describe the world around us in order to dream what we want to dream?
written | directed by: Liliana Zeic
featuring: Natalia Pancewicz
camera: Anu Czerwiński
video post-production: Anu Czerwiński
audio post-production: Paweł Rychert
cooperation: dr Janusz Filipiak
translated by: Ewa Bodal
with thanks to Anna Dzierzgowska and the Jacek Kuroń Wielokulturowe Liceum Humanistyczne
video realized as part of the Festival NARRATIONS #14: Soft Spots. Gdańsk – Orunia 2023
