Spinning Sense - A cinematic short film cycle
Spinning Sense: Shifting betwen Shapes @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: Mirror of Stillness @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: Seeing being seen @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: Recalling Memories @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: Pulse of Rumination @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: Echoes of Fears @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: Ceremony of Entanglements @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: Silent Renewal @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: Rhythm of Return @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense: The Prologue @ D. Zimmermann
Spinning Sense is a cinematic short film cycle that explores spiritual, ritual, and performative practices. Each episode tells a standalone story with new protagonists in changing locations, captured by a camera that spins inexorably around its own axis. This continuous movement breaks with classic narrative patterns and opens up a cinematic field beyond linear narration.
The short films are created in close collaboration with artists, choreographers, and performers whose practice is based on ritual and embodied forms of knowledge. The focus is not on pure documentation, but on the medium of film as a performative space that combines critical reflection with transformative experience. In this way, each episode becomes an independent cinematic practice in its own right.
Spinning Sense oscillates between contemplative silence and intense physicality. Between performative ritual, documentary observation, and visual imagination, the episodes explore behind the surface of everyday life and open up spaces for sensory expansion, presence, and the dissolution of the ego.
1. The Prologue (10:33)
2. Shifting between Shapes (8:14)
3. Mirror of Stillness (7:49)
4. Seeing, being seen (8:45)
5. Recalling memories (14:27)
6. Pulse of Rumination (13:55)
7. Echo of Fears (7:17)
8. Ceremony of Entanglements (8:59)
9. Silent Renewal (6:38)
10. Rhythm of Return (8:28)
Find here texts and detailled credits for single episodes including preview links
The individual episodes can also be shown independently of each other.
THE PROLOGUE - Spinning Sense
The Prologue
When the ego dies, something else begins to breathe. A force strikes the skull. Between pain
and silence, transformation unfolds.
The starting point for the Prologue was to survive the destruction of one's own ego in order to
experience that there is a self beyond the ego that does not die but survives. Mystical traditions
see overcoming the ego as one of the main tasks on the spiritual path. Freed from fears, worries
and attachments, the human being finds his true nature. The more the sense of self disappears,
the more intense the experience of one's own self becomes. A wooden bar strikes the centre of
the skull from behind, opening the inner eye, which is connected to the pineal gland, and
strengthening the capacity for insight and intuition, expanding consciousness and increasing
sensitive perception.
The Prologue
Wenn das Ich stirbt, beginnt etwas anderes zu atmen. Eine Kraft trifft den Schädel. Zwischen
Schmerz und Stille entfaltet sich die Transformation.
Ausgangspunkt für den Prologue war, die Zerstörung des eigenen Egos zu überleben, um zu
erfahren, dass es ein Selbst jenseits des Egos gibt, das nicht stirbt, sondern überdauert.
Mystische Traditionen sehen die Überwindung des Egos als eine der Hauptaufgaben auf dem
spirituellen Weg. Befreit von Ängsten, Sorgen und Bindungen findet der Mensch zu seiner
wahren Natur. Je stärker das Ich-Gefühl verschwindet, desto intensiver wird die Erfahrung des
eigenen Selbst. Eine Holzleiste trifft von hinten mitten in den Schädel, öffnet das innere Auge,
das mit der Zirbeldrüse verbunden ist, und stärkt die Fähigkeit zu Erkenntnis und Intuition,
erweitert das Bewusstsein und steigert die sensitive Wahrnehmung.
Written and directed by: Daniel Zimmermann
Cast: Daniel Zimmermann
Cinematography: Daniel Zimmermann
Additional Cinematography: Serafin Spitzer
Editing: Bernhard Braunstein
Artistic Advisor: Masoumeh Jalalieh
Compositing & VFX: Matthias Halibrand
Sound Design & Foley: Karim Weeth
Re-Recording Mixer: Rudolf Pototschnig
Foley Mixer: Laurenz Öllinger
Colour Correction: Andi Winter
Graphics: Thomas Rhyner
Production: Beauvoir Films in co-production with Mischief Films
Distribution: sixpackfilm.com
Funded by: Fachausschuss Film und Medienkunst BS/BL (Film and Media Arts Committee
BS/BL) · Aargauer Kuratorium (Aargau Board of Trustees) · Federal Office of Culture (BAK) ·
Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport (BMKÖS / ÖFI+)
Length: 10:33 min
Languages: No dialogue
Music: “Interlude II, The Cached Goldfinch - Sad Mechanic Exercise” by Hari Köchli & Daniel Zimmermann
Year of completion: 2025
Location: Ipsach, Hueb above the city of Biel 2019
Country of filming: Switzerland
Spinning Sense - A cinematic short film cycle
2025
Switzerland, Austria
97 min
Avantgarde/Arts, performance, dance film/video
No Dialogue, English