Film

“I am the heron”. The voice of a woman recounts an extraordinary encounter with a heron by a stream. Is it a dream, a hallucination, fatigue due to overwork? Was das Wasser erzählt follows the course of the stream and draws attention to presences that often remain unheard and invisible. Listening to murmuring waters, the film reveals how urban expansion is covering ancient marshes, threatening to destroy “wild” life forced into proximity and coexistence with human beings, displacing inhabitants from times immemorial, or already forgotten, and erasing their imperceptible traces.

Was das Wasser erzählt (2018–2026, 80 min, languages: Tigrinya, Japanese) turns to film as a medium through which to hear the voices and inherent language of water. Through a change of viewpoint, it becomes possible to apprehend water as a place where ecosystems come together. Encouraging a radical decentring, the film proposes a change of perception that reveals more-than-human worlds, fragile multi-species cohabitations. This shift invites us to reflect on the colonisation of natural areas that mankind has carried out over the ages, polluting waters and imposing on flora and fauna its arbitrary classification of life and its violence. Now, it is not just a question of focusing attention on water, of showing its invisible presences and multiple states, rather one of concern for all the life forms it makes possible on this planet, the better to care for them.

The film will soon be available for viewing on this platform, once the project is completed.

Book

Was das Wasser erzählt is an artist’s book conceived in collaboration with edition fink, Zürich. By providing access to the complete script, the book is a reprise and expansion of the film’s narrative in literary form, offering additional sources, a collection of texts and images, film stills and working documents. It reveals the inner workings of the fabulation and traces the artistic process that shaped the various productions developed between 2018 and 2026.

The book will be published by edition fink in November 2026.

Text Installation

The text installation is on permanent public display in Zürich-Seebach. It is set out on the wall of Passage 6 of Wohnsiedlung Leutschenbach, Leutschenbachstrasse 86, 8050 Zürich.

Information, Upcoming Presentations

Was das Wasser erzählt was unveiled in September 2025. Under development since 2019 as an art and architecture project for the Wohnsiedlung Leutschenbach collective housing units in Zürich-Seebach, the artistic works were inaugurated with a public celebration. In relation to the permanent text installation, an exhibition took place on site, presenting an installation version of the film and the book project. This unique event brought together the various parts of the body of work and included the screening of the film in one of the locations where it was originally made. Reflecting the long research and production process, it showed the major transformations of the zone. By exposing invisible layers of the past, its erasure and hauntings, as well as those movements of life that reconfigure the present and anticipate our future world, Was das Wasser erzählt aims to contribute to a persistent, living urban memory, one that pays close attention to social and environmental dimensions.

A new, reworked version of the film has been produced. This extended version will be screened at the 2026 Visions du Réel festival. The film is part of the Official Selection in the National Competition section. Screenings will take place on April 20 (premiere in the presence of the filmmakers and of the crew at the Capitole Leone cinema in Nyon at 6.30 pm) and April 23, 2026 (Usine à Gaz, Nyon, 11.15 am). Further information: visionsdureel.ch

Credits