When I am asleep

A woman is sitting in dusky lit room in front of an old piano sleeping with her head on the keyboard. Spots of sunlight are moving over the walls and over the floor, and the atmosphere appears to be sleepy and warm. While sleeping, she is strumming a tune on the piano, over and over again. A metronome, which consists of a hand with an outstretched index finger, is swinging from left to the right. Hundreds of snails are moving over the piano. A double-headed puppet enters the scene. If one head is wake, the other one is asleep. The puppet is the personification of the siblings „Hypnos“and Thanatos“, („Sleep“and „ Death“) - opposed characters but inseparable connected. They are quarrelling over the woman’s life. Depending on which head is awake, they inhibit or support the piano playing. The piano playing of the sleeping woman is a metaphor for life; time rolls slowly first, and then accelerates, the woman ages. At the end of the film, the woman leaves the scenery. The sibling puppet falls asleep, and this time, none of the heads wakes up again. The metronome stops.

When I am Asleep is a parable about a life that we do not live intensely but dream away, like a coma, as if we were asleep. The plan is to have approximately 300 snails on the set, moving on the piano. An intuitive approach to the short film is necessitated by the simultaneous presence of actors, puppets and living animals on the set.

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