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EKPYROSIS

Nikolas Klement
67' / 2013 / Argentina
Web: www.ekpyrosisthefilm.com
Plattdeutsch (Low German of the XVI century)
English and spanish subtitled

Audience vote 6.47

The question is: How do you film a community that rejects the concept of nation, the values of modern civilization, the papacy, the army, the military service, the accumulation of wealth, and instead embraces rural work and a life of praying? We’re talking about more than a simple commitment to a creed or an ideology, we’re talking about accepting to be a part of a world created out of your own convictions, and eluding any coexistence with everything that’s different from that. How do you film this semi-limbo that has its own notion of time and history? This seems to be the question Nikolas Klement asks himself in his first film, a documentary that goes deep into a Mennonite community in La Pampa and portrays its everyday activities. Ekyprosis never picks up the countershot to “the others” –this is not a documentary that plays with contrasts. Klement’s interest never exceeds the limits of this settlement, and tries to capture a sense of tempo and montage, a perception of light and framing that stresses the state of extreme of physical, mental, and spiritual asceticism.

Main Festivals & Awards

BAFICI (FESTIVAL DE BUENOS AIRES) - LA HAVANA

Director's Biography

Born in Argentina in 1983 Nikolas Klement is an industrial engineer, specialist in strategy, operations and logistics. Self-taught person, he started his cinematographic career in solitude making the full length film Ekpyrosis, his opera prima, which he produced, directed and edited. Currently he is working in the post production of Ixion´s Wheel, first chapter of an extensive documental shot in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and Métempsycose, documental shot in Easter Island.

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