DOKUARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
Oct 4-21, 2018

Beyond The Obvious - Daniel Schwartz. Photographer

“I look for images whose beginning and ending lie outside the frame.” With this quote by Daniel Schwartz, Vadim Jendreyko starts his film about the Swiss photographer whom he accompanied during the work on his photobook While the Fires Burn (2017). In this project, Schwartz documents the dramatic glacier melt in the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca, the Karakoram in Pakistan, the Rwenzori Range in Uganda and in the Swiss Alps.
As early as the 1980s, the photographer has concerned himself with the consequences of climate change. This project, however, also has a biographical element: the Swiss Alps shaped the artist’s childhood memory and play a substantial role in his relationship to his father. Jendreyko uses this entanglement of biography and work to tell Daniel Schwartz’ story. By incorporating archive material and interviews into his film, he achieves a sensitive portrait that focusses a lot of attention on the interconnections between societal concern, artistic decisions, and the ascetic life style of the photo artist. The filmmaker shows, how Schwartz’ meticulous research and editing work, together with the analogue photo technique, lead to his very nuanced and historically charged images that are full of unexpected and astounding detail.

John Berger once wrote: “Photographs are records of things seen”. Jendreyko’s film portrait of Daniel Schwartz illustrates - as its title suggests - that these “things” are often found “beyond the obvious”.