TALKING TO THUNDER - TRAILER

TALKING TO THUNDER- SYNOPSIS

Julius von Bismarck, the heavily-bearded, half-naked great grand nephew of the historic Chancellor of Germany Otto von Bismarck, sets off on a Don-Quixotesque endeavour to entice a lightning bolt from the Venezuelan night skies.

Having been stunned by a lightning strike as he slept in his car in the Italian Alps
a few months previous to this venture, Julius von Bismarck journeys to the Maracaibo Lake in north-west Venezuela in an attempt to understand this super-natural phenomenon.

Guided by ancient shamanic wisdom and a borderline manic obsession Julius endeavours to capture a “Cunruru” (meaning good or friendly) bolt of lightning using a set of highly-polished homemade silver rockets connected to 800 meter long copper threads leading down to his self-constructed floating raft of amateur technology on the lake’s surface.

Dressed in a mail-suit reminiscent of those of middle-age knights but intended to serve as a faraday cage, Julius experiences the ferocity and fickleness of this natural wonder whilst simultaneously reaching a psychologically deep meditative state induced by it’s beauty and power as he repeatedly strives to convince the lighting bolts to impact the blank canvases laid out before them.

This visually ecstatic film accentuated by stunning slow-motion images of the incoming threatening, yet promising lightning bolts combined with intensely personal yet silent documentary footage gives unique insights into the artist’s process whilst concurrently creating an emotionally impressive metaphor for man’s futile battle to understand and control his natural surroundings.