Seahorse (2020) [N/A]
Written by:
Nele Dehnenkamp
Directed by:
Nele Dehnenkamp
Release Date:
April 24, 2020
Original Title:
Seepferdchen
Genres:
Documentary
Production Companies:
Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
Production Countries:
Germany
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 16
“Guess what we’re doing! We’re going to practice swimming.” Hanan accompanies her brother to classes in the public pool. The first swimming badge is called the Seahorse, their instructor explains, because it “stands” in the water and doesn’t drown. When Hanan’s family came to Europe in a rubber dinghy, she couldn’t swim. To forget this experience, she learned not to go under in the water – like a seahorse.
The seahorse is a powerful animal. It stands upright in the water and cannot sink, the swimming instructor encourages the children. A place in the human brain is named after it, the hippocampus, where all memory begins. There we archive what we cannot forget. It is the seahorse in the brain where the terror and beauty of life meet - and for Hanan it is where she stores her memories of the ocean. When the young Yezidi crossed the Mediterranean Sea with her family in a small rubber dinghy, she could not swim. The images of the deep blue sea and the fear of drowning are irrevocably burned into her memory. To reconcile her past she learned how to swim. But the waters still await her with haunting images of the ocean. Seahorse poetically explores the contradictions and unpredictability of remembrance.
