Het belangrijkste moment van mijn leven

filmstill Het belangrijkste moment van mijn levenfilmstill Het belangrijkste moment van mijn leven

Het belangrijkste moment van mijn leven (The most important moment in my life), 16mm to SD, color, sound, Serbo-Croatian spoken; English subitles, 5 min 22 sec

I think that to point a camera at someone can be an act of aggression. Cameras have replaced guns in many ways. Think of photo-safaris in which pictures of living animals have replaced stuffed animals as hunting trophies, for example. One day at a workshop in the Dutch Filmmuseum I saw an unknown piece of film which has haunted me ever since. The film was shot during WW I. There were some young nurses taking care of wounded soldiers. The nurses were all fresh young girls and they waved at the camera. They waved at me! But then I realized they were probably all dead by the time I got to see them for the first time. This made me very sad. I realized that film has everything to do with death. Or maybe it is an attempt at defying death. Because the nurses are still there, waving their hellos and goodbyes forever. I decided to build a camera and I made it look like a machine gun. Then I set out to shoot the most important moment in my life. I failed.