Apicula Enigma

With this short documentary about millifere carniche bees, shot in the Koshuta mountains in Austria, Marine Hugonnier has produced an enchanting naturalist essay and a fascinating metaphor of the creation of images. The hive is like a camera oscura, a black box whose content is never revealed. Fascinated by the magic world of bees and their micro-utopian work community, the French artist shows how images of nature can be represented as genuine narrative stories. The film registers what happens on-set: on one side the hive with its residents, how they swarm towards trees, disappearing in the nearby forest, the gathering of pollen and honey; on the other the film crew, with their cinema equipment, working on footage. It examines the mysterious space between the cinematic gaze and the thing observed.