Vztrajanje

We commence with a touching scene: A woman explains to a blind girl, what we can see on Paul Gauguin’s famous painting “Where Do We Come From? What Are We Doing? Where Are We Going?”, which he painted within a month in 1897. The painting is almost a testament of his complete works. So, how do we talk about “seeing” to someone who cannot see? “Perseverance” attempts, at least at first sight, something equally paradoxical. The film asks these questions: How can we talk about memories that have remained unshared? Are the unshared memories the actual defining substance of what makes us who we really are? The stories told within the film bring people from all over the world together and span a narrative period of about sixty years, thus perhaps symbolizing an individual human lifespan. The title pays philosophical homage to life in the emphatic sense, to the depths of all its emotions, its sensuality and its riches. (Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg)