(The Netherland, 1997, 16 mm, 11:00) 

The search for death ‘as a totally incomprehensible event is the most important incentive which compels Pieter Moleveld to make films. ‘Still Life’ is an exploration of that moment between movement and motionlessness, between light and dark, audible and inaudible, being and not-being and between Life and Death themselves. The minimal camera movements can hardly be told apart from the movements of the object, and the anticipation of emptiness is confronted by a shape hidden underneath a dark cloth. These aesthetic and carefully selected compositions do not make the limitations of the visual experience any less unavoidable, but they do exclude coincidence. Death, on the contrary, is unavoidable and unexpected, and ultimately deprives humans of great power in the face of the inescapable and coincidental circumstances of life.