Germany 2016, documentary film, HD, 79 min, featuring Sonia Soberats, Bruce Hall and Pete Eckert. Director and DoP: Frank Amann, sound: Shinya Kitamura, film editing by: Bernd Euscher and Gesa Marten (BFS), produced by: Kristina Konrad, Christian Frosch (Weltfilm Berlin), dramaturgy by: Olaf Winkler. With funding by BKM, Filmstiftung NRW, WDR/ARTE.
How would it be if I as a cameraman lost my eyesight from one day to the next? In the United States, I make a paradox discovery: Three blind people find healing from non-seeing through photography, of all things. How is that possible? In my encounters with these internationally renowned artists, I question my understanding of seeing and my obsession with images. The works of these artists are diverse and full of surprises. Sonia Soberats (New York), who unexpectedly lost her eyesight at the age of 56, shows in her paintings stages of her life the way she now sees them in her mind’s eye. Bruce Hall (Santa Ana), who has been visually impaired since birth, uses his underwater camera in an unusual way to make visual contact with his speech-impaired sons. Pete Eckert (Sacramento), who lost his eyesight after studying art and is married to a seeing woman, uses multiple exposures to portrait himself and his wife, as well as to master the Redwood Forests. Shooting in the Dark accompanies the artists as they engage in their photography, i.e. in their way of seeing. Pete Eckert says: “With every picture I take, I learn to see again.”
