A crew is shooting a libertine costume film in the countryside when Valentin, the director, suddenly disappears. While the local police investigates, the film shoot continues but takes an odd turn. Robin, the cameraman and director’s lover, follows a promise and reaches the Mexican Pacific.
In 1877, in a watch factory in a valley in north-western Switzerland, Josephine produces balance spindles, tiny parts that ensure the agitation movement ("unrueh") of the mechanical watches. She soon grows uneasy with the organisation of work and possession in the village and its factory and joins the anarchist worker movement of the local watchmakers. There she meets Piotr Kropotkin, a moony Russian traveller. The two of them meet at a time when new technologies such as time measurement, photography and the telegraph are transforming the social order and anarchist discourse is addressing emerging nationalism. During a walk in the woods, Josephine and Piotr ask themselves whether time, money and the government are not all but fictions.
In 1877, in a watch factory in a valley in north-western Switzerland, Josephine produces balance spindles, tiny parts that ensure the agitation movement ("unrueh") of the mechanical watches. She soon grows uneasy with the organisation of work and possession in the village and its factory and joins the anarchist worker movement of the local watchmakers. There she meets Piotr Kropotkin, a moony Russian traveller. The two of them meet at a time when new technologies such as time measurement, photography and the telegraph are transforming the social order and anarchist discourse is addressing emerging nationalism. During a walk in the woods, Josephine and Piotr ask themselves whether time, money and the government are not all but fictions.
Born in 1985 in Zurich, Switzerland, Valentin Merz moved to Mexico City in 2007 where he worked as a typographer and studied at Haute école d’art et de design in Geneva. DE NOCHE LOS GATOS SON PARDOS (2021) won the Cinegrell First Look Award at this year’s Locarno Festival for its complexity, playfulness and its innovative and challenging storytelling. A VULGAR ADVENTURE is his feature debut.