Inspired by jazz musician Jimmy Giuffre's statement, 'I’m not afraid to play something simple', Thierry Knauff has created a cinematic exercise in capturing beauty, observing nature and being moved by film. He translated the way jazz musicians play together into an interplay of elements he saw on the Tisza River, a tributary of the Danube: rustling willow leaves, followed by the whirring of thousands of mayfly wings and a young girl's hair blowing in the wind.
The film plays with abstract patterns and focuses on emerging life and the tough battle for survival in nature. Says Knauf, ‘Vita brevis is a poem of the moment, an evocation of the fragile and fleeting dance of life.’