Brief summary of the proposed project
The Town in the Shadow of a Mountain (working title) is a short, creative documentary. Focused on Rjukan, a small town in central Norway which is characterised by its absence of sunlight for six months of the year, this documentary aims to explore the relationship that the town’s population has with the sun. Through building relationships with a number of the town’s residents, this project follows a selection of Rjukan’s most prominent characters through their annual personal journeys from the depths of Rjukan’s bleak, sunless winter to the day of the sun’s return, exploring the effect that the sun has on the lives of Rjukan’s community. The documentary will conclude with coverage of the ‘Solfesten’ (Sun Festival), a community-wide celebration that takes place in the spring, celebrating the sun’s return. This will be the project’s point of climax, tying the story together.
Detailed outline of proposed project
The idea for this documentary was incepted towards the latter end of the brainstorming period. Beginning by researching themes that involved issues pertaining to the environment and isolated communities, we became fixated on topics involving light and dark, environmental impacts on communities, and technological solutions to natural concerns. The story of Rjukan therefore became perfect subject matter for us, in that it aroused all of our group’s interests and had significant visual and narrative potential in terms as a story.
Rjukan is a small, originally industrial, town in central Norway containing approximately 3,500 people. Due to Rjukan’s geographical position in a valley between two mountains, in the winter months it does not see any direct sunlight. This causes potential for a plethora of social and personal issues for the town’s residents. As a ‘solution’ to this, Martin Andersen, the town’s resident artist, built a system of automated mirrors on the mountaintop, which were designed to reflect sunlight from outside of the valley, down into the town square.
In November, the entirety of our crew visited Rjukan in order to learn more about the town and its communities, and immerse ourselves into Rjukan’s way of life. This process was incredibly insightful, and was pivotal in allowing our documentary to take shape in the way in which it is currently. From our trip to Rjukan, we learnt a number of things that we otherwise could not have foreseen. For example, whilst there, we learnt that the mirrors, which were initially the key focus of our project, were obscured by fog a great deal of the time. The community considered the mirrors lacklustre, and rather their happiness revolved heavily around the reappearance of the sun in its true form, as it returns in spring (March 12th).
Although the creation of a documentary is a learning process, whereby the creative vision is constantly evolving and adapting as a result of experiences taking place during the making process, I believe it is important to begin creating with a general narrative structure in mind, which is based on research. The moment of the sun’s reappearance in the town appears to be almost magical and an incredibly important time of the year for Rjukan’s community, and so this is where the majority of our documentary will focus. Beginning in the depths of Rjukan’s harsh winter, our film will introduce the town and the main character(s) that we will be focussing on. The documentary will juxtapose the relative low spirits of the town in the winter with the day of the sun’s return in March, following key characters in the town through the seasonal transition that is a big part of living in the town with no winter sun. We will follow these characters during the lead up to the Sun Festival which takes place in early April each year. This is a community-wide celebration that at least half of the town will partake in, and involves live performances, parades and eccentric costume. For many, the Sun Festival is the epitome of annual celebration in Rjukan, not only because it symbolises the sun’s return, but also because of the togetherness and sense of companionship felt within the community during this time.
At 8-10 minutes in length, this documentary will veer away from the form of traditional documentary. Whilst the narrative structure of this piece could be considered traditional, formal aspects of the piece will set it apart from other examples of films within the job, thus rendering it a ‘poetic observational documentary’. Although the final visual format of the documentary, naturally, has not been finalised, there are aspects of it that have been discussed. This narrative for example may have a traditional structure in reality, but we will experiment with different ways of telling the story so that it best compliments the relevant themes that run throughout. Furthermore, the documentary will have a cinematic aesthetic, utilising cinema-quality cameras, aspect ratios and colour grades.
Finally, it is important for us to have involvement from the community not only in the production process but also in its planning and exhibition. For this reason, we are keeping an open dialogue with many residents in the town throughout the filmmaking process, with the intention to exhibit the project to them upon its completion. Whilst we are unsure as to whether this will take the shape of a screening in the local cinema or public installation, we feel that this project belongs to the community just as much as it belongs to us, and so we consider it vital that it is open locally for everybody to enjoy.
