Experiencing Interruptions?

Tonnage

Tonnage (2024), is an ode to the vernacular and seemingly trivial encounters with the daily activities, interpersonal schemes and historical semantics ruling, surrounding or implied in the routines of Eleusis’ dockworkers. With a direct reference to the exact meaning of tonnage, a word describing the weight in tons, especially of cargo or freight, and with a subtle incline to the connotations of such a weight sociopolitically, in both personal and collective terms, the film stays with the oxymora, contradictions and inbetweens of a concrete yet fragile past, a threatening, yet tender current, a forgone, yet (still) resilient future.

The words heard from afar, the textual fragments read by the artist Juan Esteban Sandoval, find themselves in dialogue with Tonnage, operate as complimentary to this chronologically linear, yet a-canonical narrative. The concurrently philosophical and poetic composition of phrases follow the flow of the direction. Their use longs for speaking the noble when referring to the discovery of fire by the human species; it strives for tracing the vulnerable when transcribing the earth’s softness. And amongst many others, these are some of the parables that bring together the history human of existence and the quotidian of the dockers’ lives as schemes that don’t vary much from one another.

The images, speaking in their own tongues, emphasize on what’s uttered through words. They represent fire’s dynamic as a working tool, but also as a vanishing power; the earth’s plasticity as a portal for artistic expression, yet also as a means for exercising schemes of violation, appropriation, dominance. And whilst they do, they also reflect on their own production; they whisper questions about gaze, authority and power when holding the camera, when working from and through a decentralized, a peripheral position, both geopolitically and symbolically. And along with them, there’s a lyrical noise, survived and embodied; the sound of labor is amplifying the unseen.

“Tonnage” is a film that constantly listens with, observes and eventually weighs this other semantic, unseen cargo, trying to find a balance between these inescapable contradictions. And it does so, by tracking the community’s voice, by staying with the rhythms of its activities, by observing its models of working, longing and belonging.

Mystery 111 Eleusis Terracotta Army - 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture

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  • Yorgos Kyvernitis
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    19 minutes 6 seconds
  • Country of Origin:
    Greece
  • Country of Filming:
    Greece
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director - Yorgos Kyvernitis