Victoria Halper

3 a.m. in one of those anonymous cities: in the echoes of an exuberant party, a young man and a young woman meet in the red glow of a traffic light. The disappointed expectations for an exciting evening are quickly transferred to the unexpected encounter and soon the way home becomes a journey through the deserted urban night. Playful flirt turns serious when the man‘s eyes wander to a faint light in the sky. Despite her initial fear that he is romantically gazing at the stars, his eyes are searching the sky for Gegenschein: „the sun casting its shadow in the night“. From a brief moment of intimacy, a mercilessly honest game of questions and answers emerges, which finally ends in a confession: „What‘s the worst thing you‘ve ever done?“

3 a.m. in one of those anonymous cities: in the echoes of an exuberant party, a young man and a young woman meet in the red glow of a traffic light. The disappointed expectations for an exciting evening are quickly transferred to the unexpected encounter and soon the way home becomes a journey through the deserted urban night. Playful flirt turns serious when the man‘s eyes wander to a faint light in the sky. Despite her initial fear that he is romantically gazing at the stars, his eyes are searching the sky for Gegenschein: „the sun casting its shadow in the night“. From a brief moment of intimacy, a mercilessly honest game of questions and answers emerges, which finally ends in a confession: „What‘s the worst thing you‘ve ever done?“

EXIT: OPEN is a first-person danse macabre documenting true stories and individual perspectives on dying, death and transience: filmed during the 2020 Coronavirus lockdown at an abandoned office complex in Vienna, Austria.

As streaks and stains, they float through the field of vision, interfere with seeing and fray the nerves. Victoria Halper creates these fleeting image interferences, so-called mouches volantes, with Super8 film, digital material, and a dirty camera lens. An autobiographical experiment that challenges viewers’ clear sightedness.

A visual exploration of the internal thoughts of a tightrope walker with his daughter on his shoulders based on the historical person of Josef Eisemann, who later fell to his death in post-war Vienna, Austria.