Constant
40' / 2K DCP / 2022
DE, UK
"Constant" is a journey through the social and political histories of measurement. For most of recorded history, the human body was the measure of all things. “Constant” asks what led measurement to depart from the body and become a science unto itself. The film explores three shifts in the history of measurement standardization, from the land surveying that drove Early Modern European land privatization, to the French Revolution that drove the Metric Revolution, to the conceptual dematerialisation of measurement in the contemporary era of Big Science. Each chapter traces the relationship of measurement standardization to ideas of egalitarianism, agency, justice, and power. Cinematic and technical images that begin as products of measurement systems are stretched beyond their functions to describe the resistance of lived experience to symbolic abstractions.
Text / direction / camera / edit / sound design: Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner
Producers: Guillaume Cailleau for CaSk Films, Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner
3D and point cloud animation: Matteo Mastrandrea
Original music: dead hand
Additional music: Beny Wagner
Narration: Cynthia Beatt
Sound design and mix: Gabor Ripli
Color grade: Sergi Sanchez
Supported by:
Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg
Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien
Awards:
Silvestre Award for Best Short Film, IndieLisboa 2022
Press:
Interview: BOMB Magazine
Interview: Filmmaker Magazine
Interview: Hammer to Nail
Review: The Film Verdict
Review: FRIEZE
Review: Edge Media Network
Review: Criterion Cast
Presentations:
51st International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ammodo Tiger Shorts Competition
First Look, Museum of Moving Image, New York
CPH:DOX, New Visions Competition, Copenhagen, Denmark
Courtisane, Ghent, Belgium
Indie Lisboa, Silvestre Competition, Lisbon
Prismatic Ground, Maysles Documentary Center, New York



