Augusts Orte

"It's the end of August. The air is sluggish. And it's hot." The last three sentences in the off-screen commentary to Valerie Pelet's cinematic travel journal August's Places actually summarize quite well what you can expect when watching it: Italian impressions at the time of Ferragosto, crowded bathing beaches, idle people "in search of a new skin color" in heat-drawn Super-16; in between, quite casually, as if it were cutting itself in the camera, everyday impressions from Austrian border regions such as the Waldviertel. The front of a butcher's shop, a postcard with words of thanks, the last sausages with extra mustard, moths. The (Western) world as it presents itself here could be one that deserves to waste a little less energy and strength once a year. At times, however, the moments of calm and stillness could be mistaken for a general indifference, especially when the soundtrack talks about refugees and deportations. "My sister's husband has been waiting for humanitarian residence rights in Austria since August 2020," writes Valerie Pelet in a short text about August's locations: "He lost his residence permit in the entire Schengen area due to unfortunate circumstances. This event prompted me to travel through the places he passed through - right up to the Austrian border - and to think about what had happened. Despite my revolting feelings about the repeated injustices in these landscapes, I tried to retell the memories I had tracked down with distance and without resentment."