Every night, numbers appear and disappear. Every morning, he writes them down in a notebook before setting out with his camera in search of images. But every photograph comes at a price: as the young photographer captures the world around him, the book he once abandoned begins to burn. When a boy sinks beneath the water at the sound of a camera shutter, a dream leaves him with a mysterious appointment: a set of coordinates and a time, 3:33 a.m. What awaits him is something he thought he had left behind. Caught between false awakenings and traces buried beneath the snow, he must confront what his photographs are slowly erasing.
This film was born out of a desire to question the pursuit of beautiful images when beauty becomes an end in itself. I chose to portray the act of photography as a form of subtraction: each photograph takes something from reality without giving anything back, while the burning book reveals what the protagonist has given up by abandoning writing. Through dreams and false awakenings, the numbers become a call to reconnect with a part of himself he has long suppressed. At the heart of this conflict, storytelling becomes the only way to restore meaning: writing means creating connections, giving shape to experience, and offering something to others. The final transition from black and white to colour reflects this process of rediscovery. Putting down the camera and returning to the book becomes the gesture through which the protagonist reclaims responsibility for the stories he chooses to tell.
SHOT ON: fujifilm xh2s
LENSES: MIR 37mm 2.8 / Helios 44-M / Vivitar 21mm 3.8 (+ speedbooster x0.71)