Animated short film in 7 chapters | DE | 2025 | 14:03min

Synopsis:

Based on the historical land survey by Carl Friedrich Gauss and Christian Ludwig Gerling, ‘Maps of Wilderness’ explores the limits of measurability. Precise tools encounter weather, distance and that which cannot be fully captured. Seven female artists venture into the experiment of developing a film from this material, working together as equals. Analogue animation techniques and a text by Daniela Danz are the starting points for new perspectives.

The Story:

They made it: a cartographer and his colleague managed to measure the entire world between them. No blank spots are left on their maps. Everything around them is clear and safe.

Soon in, their world is thrown into disarray. The measuring devices begin to produce incomprehensible signals – a wind full of interferences. The situation becomes threatening. At the beginning, there is still a connection between the two. Then the wind grows into a storm, signals cannot be interpreted any longer, all devices and means of communication get destroyed. Nothing feels save anymore, maps fly about and the landscape turns into a threat. In the midst of this chaos a calm suddenly returns.
Bit by bit, the cartographer comes to a rest. Now he is forced to listen into himself, communication without devices becomes possible. New landscapes start to emerge – those of perception, colors, feelings and memories. Change is now the new point of reference, and the cartographer’s own resonance the basis for a new way of understanding.

Duration: 14:03 min

Year: 2025

Technique: cut out animation, top-motion, analogue drawn animation

Script: Daniela Danz

Direction: Aline Helmcke, Sandra Reyes, Juliane Franke, Franka Sachse, Catalina Giraldo, Ana Maria Vallejo

Animation: Aline Helmcke, Sandra Reyes, Juliane Franke, Anya Ryzhkova, Franka Sachse, Catalina Giraldo, Ana Maria Vallejo

Sound, Music & Singing: Ada Schmidt


Production: A co-production by FilmVermoegen GmbH and Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR)

Story development: Literary Society of Thuringia

Sponsors:

• Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung
• Staatskanzlei des Freistaates Thüringen
• Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen
• Frauenförderfonds der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar