Nicolaas Schmidt’s ‘September Afternoon’ Turns Beach Wind into Visual Poetry

In his first feature, Nicolaas Schmidt presents ‘September Afternoon’, which premiered in the Cineasti del Presente lineup after his 2021 Special Mention at Locarno. The silent film follows a family on a windy beach, where a father’s futile attempts to secure a tent are repeatedly undone by gusts that also fill the tent with sand, creating a Sisyphean mood underscored by a looping instrumental track. Filmed over a handful of days, the production’s plan for calm weather was upended, turning the wind into an inadvertent yet pivotal element that drives the visual narrative.

Schmidt adopts and then subverts classic advertising tropes—frontal shots, extreme close-ups, glossy waves—infusing them with exaggerated gestures and shifting color palettes, notably using red to denote desperation after the father’s separation. The piece references Philippe Garrel’s silent avant-garde film ‘Le Révélateur’, aligning its gray-scale modulations with a critique of today’s social-media-saturated visual culture. By emphasizing texture, duration, and sensation over conventional plot, Schmidt continues his exploration of “dead time” and the border between narrative film and video art, inviting viewers to experience cinema as an in-between state of awareness.