Jacqueline Zünd Explores Inequality in Visions du Réel Doc ‘Heat’

“Heat is like a death sentence.”

The line, spoken by a Kuwait-based meteorologist in Jacqueline Zünd’s “Heat,” anchors a movie that examines global warming not by means of rationalization however by means of what the Swiss filmmaker describes as “a sensory experience.”

Premiering in the main competitors at Visions du Réel, Switzerland’s main documentary movie competition, “Heat” immerses the viewer in environments the place excessive temperatures are completely reshaping the means people live and work, exposing stark inequalities as the rich retreat into air-conditioned worlds, leaving those who serve them to endure the extremes.

Shot across the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Egypt, the movie shifts between a handful of characters, including a supply driver on 12-hour shifts in scorching city landscapes, a Kenyan girl working in a Dubai ice lounge, a real property agent who brings ice and meals to stray cats, and the meteorologist who displays on how daily life has modified as temperatures rise.

The movie grew out of Zünd’s fiction feature “Don’t Let the Sun,” which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival last yr. The two have been developed in parallel, each feeding into the other.

“While researching my fiction film, I found so many interesting details about the subject that it felt like an invitation to make a documentary,” she tells Variety.

In “Don’t Let the Sun,” total societies shift to dwelling at evening – an thought impressed by real working circumstances in the Persian Gulf. “There are construction workers who already live at night because it’s too hot during the day,” she explains. “I pushed that idea further in my fiction work: what if our entire lives were reversed?”

Making the documentary, she says, she discovered that this imagined future is already taking form. “I was writing about a dystopia,” she provides. “And then I found this dystopia in real life.”

Gaining entry to these environments proved difficult, says Zünd, not only as a consequence of temperatures sometimes exceeding 50 levels Celsius, however also because firms have been reluctant to take part and filming circumstances in the area are tightly managed.

Filming was accomplished with a minimal crew, sometimes without formal authorization, notably when capturing inside the supply driver’s shared lodging.

This scene gives only a partial view, Zünd notes. “This one was actually a nice camp compared to the others – some are horrible places, where you have 10 to 15 men in one room without proper air.”

The shoot also drew consideration from authorities. While filming in Dubai, members of the crew have been briefly detained and questioned before being launched. Zünd says they weren’t given any rationalization for the questioning, which was handled as routine.

The movie’s putting, extremely stylized visible language was developed in collaboration with longtime collaborator, cinematographer Nicolai von Graevenitz. The objective, says Zünd, was for the viewer to “feel” the insufferable warmth.

“I always want to translate states visually,” she says. “Not through text or dialogue, but through something physical with images and sound – like a cinematic mirage.”

Early footage shot in excessive temperatures did not convey the sensation Zünd had skilled on location. “We were filming in 50 degrees, but it didn’t look hot at all,” she recollects.

That realization led her to focus more on sound early on in the edit. “The editor was working a lot on levels, on winds – ‘Does this sound hot or not?,’” she explains. “There are a lot of uncomfortable sounds and we had to make sure they were not too uncomfortable and wouldn’t drive the viewers out of the cinema theater,” she jokes.

Visual methods also play a key position. The movie opens with real mirages filmed close to Aswan in Egypt, the place atmospheric circumstances produce optical distortions. Zünd sought out the location particularly. “I wanted to translate heat visually for the opening of the film – I wanted something powerful,” she says.

Later in the movie, sequences shot on Super 8 introduce what she describes as a temporal shift. “It’s a nostalgia of the present,” she explains. “As if we are remembering today from the future.”

For Zünd, the choice to concentrate on sensation displays her want to have interaction with audiences affected by local weather fatigue. “People are tired of being told what’s happening,” she says. “So I wanted to approach it in a different way.”

“Heat” will premiere in the worldwide competitors at Visions du Réel on April 20. Produced by Louis Mataré for Lomotion AG in co-production with Zünd’s Real Film, the documentary is backed by ARTE and SFR (Swiss Radio and Television). Sales are dealt with by Taskovski Films.

Visions du Réel runs in Nyon until April 26.