Jonas Spriestersbach

ANIMALS

TIERE

Germany, 2019, 75’

Animals is an episodic documentary film. It shows people who contemplate and puzzle over animals in order to understand them. In this case, “to understand” means that animals must comply with human ideas. The animals are bred and shaped; they are modified, their sounds are imitated, attempts of re-enactment are undertaken. What do animals have to offer? As one keeps digging deeper, all sense of certainty gets lost. And while the animals increasingly disappoint, slowly but surely a melancholic perplexity sets in. The hope was to find an answer within the animal, and still people were just revolving around themselves. It seems only logical then, that humans ultimately put on animal costumes in order to take over the animals’ role without a further ado.

Jonas Spriestersbach
Born in 1982 in Hamburg. He studied psychology and art history before attending the University of Arts in Kassel to study visual communications. From 2008 on he specialised in cinematography at the University of Film and Television in Munich.