Experiencing Interruptions?

The Neighbourhood

How does the sound of Berlin look like?
Essentially it can be broken down into movement, color, kinky contemporary's, distortion, contrasts, and a never ending, dragging beat...

This video is created from fragments of everyday life. It is a documenting snapshot of the Neighbourhood, in Berlinerisch dialect called "Der Kiez".
Color is just a matter of perception. Who say's that what I see in my head is the same as you see ?
The closest way to portray Berlin is when color and shapes, silhouettes and contoures merge and morph. Only then the potpurry of Berlin life comes to shine. This is the attempt to focus the eye of the viewer to the small incidents around each and every one. After all, that's what makes every day a big adventure.

I often struggle trying to find a way to portray the core and living heart of a place through moving pictures. I want to create a relatable film but at the same time something unique, my own style. Why does a documentary have to be slow, classically filmed and interrupted by interviews? Can't we mirror our world much better in the actual style we see it in?

My biggest goal with this film is to create a new type of documentary. A from the Italian neo-realism influenced genre, in which people act instead of talk, and in which an avant-gardistic cinematography can be as relevant as in an arthouse production.

I hope my spectators don't point out my free interpretation of my colorful city but instead get inspired and leave their inspiration the control for a while.

during many conversation with the people of berlin we came to the conclusion to state our opinion regarding The role of transgender nudity in electronic music of the 21. century:

Until today, nudity is a concept that in many cultures isn't accepted. Even if nudity for the sake of art is regarded differently, nude content, not only in social media and in the digital world, but also in the entire society premises a restriction to the content, and is directly regarded differently then any other hypothetically "child-friendly" content.

The only concept of nudity which is even less accepted is the nudity of transgendered people. While at least a part of society sees nudity neither as something odd, nor as something sexist-pornographic, but instead as something giving the art further purpose, the nudity of a transgender or person with undefined gender is almost always considered as something odd, something weird and abnormal. While the nudity of the Dancer in my Video Clip shouldn't evoke sexual feelings, it should definitely strengthen the shown picture. Only the pure body, dancing nude on the Ice closes the circle of unity with nature and the moment.

Still, Sarnt (The dancer) is regarded like a foreign body. People struggle to define him as either male or female, but forget to look one layer deeper. And I am not saying they forget to look at his soul, but rather of what relevance does this question have? Is the search for gender specific body parts more important then the harmonic performance?
Isn't a body, free of any specific parts and thus free of any gender specific judgement not the exactly right corpse, to portray electronic music? ...A genre which many still don't comprehend, the more minimalistic it gets, the less it is regarded as music... Isn't there a certain connection between these two elements?

  • Thomas Kuhn
    Director
    The Polyphony of Touch
  • Thomas Kuhn
    Writer
    The Polyphony of Touch
  • Thomas Kuhn
    Producer
  • Eriko Falcone
    Key Cast
  • Miguelina Orozco
    Key Cast
  • Sarnt Utamachote
    Key Cast
  • Thomas Kuhn
    Post-production / Editing
    The Polyphony of Touch
  • Siggatunez
    Soundtrack
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short, Web / New Media
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 33 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 24, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Country of Filming:
    Germany, Italy
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • The Short Nights of Berlin
    Berlin
    Germany
    June 19, 2017
    24. April 2017
Director Biography - Thomas Kuhn

Since 2016 - Bachelor of Arts at Freie Universität Berlin Film and Communication
2017-2018 - Fashion Photograohy Masterclass with Paolo Roversi and Dominique Issermann in Paris

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

is this art? I don't know.
Student of film and communications at day, randomly creative contemporary at night.
I am a pure minimalist. mostly.
The camera is my closest companion, my pocketbook the biggest treasure.
Sometimes I dont't know what I am doing. But as long as It reaches my personal standard of aesthetics, I keep doing exactly that, until it reaches my own requirements of perfection... Which really doesn't happen often. My list of unfinished projects extends, but if something grabs my passion, I'll work day and night and slip away in my own world of creation.