roumarini

The expression "light from light" found in ritual texts of Greek Orthodoxy refers to the "light of knowledge", the light that Jesus bears to transmit his teaching to the world. Balkan filmmaker Neritan Zinxhiria appropriates the expression by bringing to light photographic plates captured by the "hand-made" camera of a monk in early 30's in the remote Mount Athos, an autonomous religious region in N. Greece. Photographs are intertwined with Super 8 footage by the Albanian filmmaker revealing some aspects of the everyday life in the monasteries in that time. Camera's captures evolved by filmmaker's aspiration guide the spectators' eye through a time crack, an opening for natural teleology. In philosophical terms, the filmmaker produces dialectical images, the habitus of a lived life in a hermetic monastery in dialogue with the present monastic life, which -apart some technological facilitations (e.g., phone booth in color), is not so much different. Same as submerging in cinema screen, time distance behind the screen seems extinguished due to light's magical hand. On the other hand, let's not forget that man's attempts to capture the moment, relating to his egoistic concerns to overrule time and -much later- to express himself artistically, began in a "camera obscura" 200 years ago.