Dir. Daniel Zimmermann - 2018 - Switzerland - No Dialogue

In the forest of the Catholic Monastery of Admont in Austria a fir tree is felled and processed into planks of wood. By train, truck, boat and finally by hand, the stack is transported to a mysterious destination right in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. The wooden planks’ trajectory corresponds to one of the central, raw materials trade routes, however in reversed direction of transport.

Each sequence of shots corresponds to a stage in the process. By means of thirteen 360-degree shots, Walden makes a subtle comment on the absurdity of our globalised world.

"The starting point of the journey, the Admont forest symbolizes a Western viewpoint, the final destination in the Amazon rainforest, an animist world of imagination. Walden doesn’t counter these two world views against each other, but instead transforms and connects them through precise staging, all along the transport route." Daniel Zimmermann