From Something To Nothing

The pink cross on the tree marks the beginning of the end. The beech tree is the first to go, and something becomes nothing—or rather, a 19-hectare forest near Ehrenfeld in Upper Austria becomes a vast commercial area. From Something to Nothing is the cinematic portrait of this natural site, cleared in 2021—one of the largest forest destruction projects in the region. “Instead of a documentary-realistic approach,” says Michael Heindl, “I chose an abstract visual language that does not aim at recognizability or the communication of facts, but at perception, irritation, and emotional resonance.” More than 3,000 individual images of tree bark from the forest that was later destroyed form the photographic basis for this film, whose impact is inescapable—also thanks to the soundtrack by Lonesome Andi Haller. (Michael Pekler)