Light Year

Nature documentary filmmaker Mikael Kristersson captures the four seasons in his lush garden, complete with chicken sheds, greenhouse, vegetable beds, a hawthorn and a knotty old apple tree. The buzzing of insects and the chattering of birds are the only sounds in this peaceful observation, without commentary, of everyday life in the garden in Falsterbo, an old town in the south of Sweden. Kristersson shot this Super 16 footage over a period of 20 years and edited it together into a natural rhythm. We see the world from the point of view of a spider spinning its web, young birds leaving the nest for the first time, a butterfly laying its eggs under a leaf, a wasp eating a caterpillar while hanging by one leg, and the cat, watching it all from a distance. Here, there is enough to sustain all of this: a sunflower seed, an apple, a drinking fountain that gradually freezes up before our eyes. Through his sharp observations, Kristersson allows us to keep making new discoveries in the bustle of the garden. This is the world that surrounds us, but about which we know so little.