Plus Camerimage Festival – Bydgoszcz, Poland

Blinding

“Blinding" is a documentary that in a curiously artistic manner raises the theme of blindness within the modern world. Though Steve Sanguedolce is not interested in medical analysis of the problem, but a strictly humanistic one. For “Blinding" is not only a meditation on losing one's sight, that becomes a severe condition in experiencing the reality, but also an examination of blindness as a disease of modern civilization, consuming not the senses, but human souls. We all live in the culture that feeds upon the illusions, both optical and mental; in a sense we are all blind to the suffering of others, to the perversions mounting within the reality that surrounds us. Even if we do not have any problems with our physical sight, we all often live hiding behind the veils of our ambitions and dreams.

"Blinding"

“Blinding" is an exceptional film in terms of audiovisual means. Sanguedolce narrates his film partly through the use of recorded voices of a writer, ex-policewoman and ex-military pilot who talk about the intimate details of their lives and joys and sorrows of their professions, and partly with the help of a series of stylized images. Various situations, staged by the filmmaker and acted by his friends, blend with different archive materials that more or less symbolically illustrate the things that are being talked about at a given time. In terms of the visuals the documentary looks like a mix of old, scratched film, overexposed photographs and images combining too many filters. The effect is a stream-of-consciousness-like narration that gives this experimental documentary eerie overtones it uses to capture our attention.

Directed by: Steve Sanguedolce

Cinematography: Steve Sanguedolce, Mike Hoolboom, Janice Bird, Jeffrey Paull