Programme 2

In Cielo abierto, the mechanical eye of a drone scans the interior of a church in Arequipa, Peru, to transform it into a virtual model. Just as the eye of a fly captures light to produce a pixelated, abstract image, the drone translates the inexhaustible forms of Andean Baroque into point clouds — a dematerialized geometry.

Directed by Felipe Esparza, the work situates itself on the boundary between experimental ethnography and fiction. The film portrays the disconnection of two men isolated by grief after the mysterious death of the family’s mother. On one hand, the father patiently chips away at the white volcanic stone that shapes the extraordinary physical landscape of a sillar quarry in Arequipa. On the other, the son inhabits a virtual world, operating cameras and drones to create a digital model of a church on his computer. Although their lives seem not to touch, their trades overlap in a ghostly manner: each, in his own way, works with textures, volumes, and the perception of space.

Embracing the cadence of observational cinema, Esparza contrasts the ancestral corporeality of stone carving with the absolute scrutiny of the digital sensor. Confronted with the promise of a perfect record of the church’s interior, the film invites us to consider the transformation of the physical world into a pure visual geometry stripped of materiality.

Xavier Nueno