Augusts Orte + déjà vu

Blurred boundaries between looking and being looked at, travelling and fleeing. Valérie Pelet follows her brother-in-law’s route from Morocco to Austria. He is no longer permitted to remain in the Schengen area, we hear in a voiceover, whilst sun-kissed bellies glisten on screen. At some point, refugee movements and tourism converge in the August air; one senses that one is moving within an unreal simultaneity that speaks of Europe’s beach-side indifference. Lisl Ponger questions not so much the travellers themselves as their colonialist-tinged view of the world. Her film is a found-footage collage of travel films, juxtaposed with an untranslated Babylonian jumble of languages: on the soundtrack, those filmed by the travellers in distant places speak of oppression and flight. (P.H.)