A film playing with sound, space and time.
Palindrome is a filmic experiment with surround sound, that stands on the border between cinema, theater and installation. An essential part of the plot is conveyed through the sound – Henri, Iris and John never appear on the screen, one only hears their voices. The surround sound is especially used to give the viewers the feeling that the characters sit among them in the audience – dialogues and sounds not only come from the front, but from all four walls of the cinema hall. In one scene one hears the humming of an old projector from the rear wall, the whispers of the guests coming from the room centre, and a curious monologizing voice coming from the front.
Utilizing the surround sound in an experimental way, Palindrome tries to create and encourage a new way to experience cinema – a new spatial cinema, where the fiction is not only limited to the screen, but now also encompasses the whole cinema hall.
David Erik Ronner is a Suisse-Swedish filmmaker and composer based in Hamburg. He is currently studying Fine Art with a focus on film at the University of Fine Arts (HFBK). Since studying Applied Theatre Sciences in Gießen, he has worked on several short films and stage productions.
This film takes heavy use of Surround Sound, therefore it would be important to have it screened with a 5.1 Surround-playback system. A short animation at the beginning explains this movie’s concept. This animation is not a real part of the film, but solely serves as an explanatory introduction to the jury watching this screener.