7 . Sous la terre de Polin , Ania Szczepanska © Bachibouzouk-Les poissons volants
These questions lie at the heart of the film Sous la terre de Polin that I am currently making . They raise purely cinematographic questions about the incarnation of the dead that these objects represent and about time ( the time they are found , restored and transmitted ). With extensive experience in film and a taste for experimental images , my camera operator Pawel Sobczyk works on the materiality and texture of images . We are working to invent filming devices to vary scales of observation , from the infinite smallness of objects to sweeping landscapes . It is with this variation of scale and this attention to materiality and to the brokenness of objects , for example , that I would like to construct the visual language of my film .
The creation of this film is prolonged academically in my work as a historian . It led me to begin research to understand the policies to acquire , conserve and exhibit objects to better understand the choices made at the Auschwitz Museum . These research trips to Germany , Israel and Poland will give rise to a collective publication that will compare the words of those who work on the memory of the Shoah from this materiality : archaeologists , curators and other professionals who interact with academic and school environments . “ Everyday objects ”, the scope and nature of which we must attempt to define
in relation to other groups ( human remains , works of art , etc .), their narrative through literature and cinema , but also their multiple functions , will be the subject of a report that is currently being written and will be published in the Revue d ’ histoire de la Shoah in 2025 .
And you : what have you learned from the distribution and circulation of your film Sheol , particularly in France , Spain , Switzerland and the United States , about the role that documentary films can play in these discussions , which are both questions concerning researchers in the humanities but also eminently political questions that affect states ’ polices of memory ? Is screening the film in Poland problematic ?
Arnaud Sauli : This is a thorny issue inherent to any documentary film on the history of the Shoah . It first asks about the alleged universal nature of film audiences . When we film sites like Sobibor or Auschwitz , the public is in fact mixed , with sometimes contradictory and even irreconcilable expectations . Sheol , for example , found an audience of historians in France where it circulated among the community of researchers and gave rise to fascinating discussions . But it also came under heavy criticism from descendants of victims of the
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Observing Memories Issue 7