Vikingland (2011)

• 62%
• 2011
• Documentary
• Xurxo Chirro

Vikingland is based on 16 hours of footage recorded in VHS by a Galician sailor named Luís Lomba between 1993 and 1994 while working in a ferry boat on a path that takes people, vehicles and goods from Danish town Romo and the Sylt island, an area of frozen sea. As he learns how to use the camera, Luís records his workmates, the ships, the landscape, every work task, and his rest and leisure times. It's not your typical found footage piece: director Xurxo Chirro (a manipulator, as he defines himself) organizes these moments without altering them for dramatic purposes and respects the images as what they are: distant memories. It's a melancholic work-comedy that is set and captured in a very particular way; and also a video journal that uses modern cinema resources to show us the backstage of what could have been an undoubtedly 19th century story filled with trips and adventures.