_{Journey Through Our World by Peter Lataster and Petra Lataster-Czisch}

Did the world get bigger during the Covid lockdowns or did it get smaller? If you watch Petra Lataster-Czisch and Peter Lataster’s new documentary Journey Through Our World (premiering in IDFA’s International Competition) you can answer bother ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to that question.

Yes, the world contracted. Like everyone else, the husband and wife filmmaking team were confined to their homes. They had to postpone the film on which they were working. However, they found a new universe during the pandemic - one that turned out to be hidden in their own back garden.

“We were busy with another film and we had to quit it because of Covid. We felt lost [because] we love so much to make films. We had always wondered what it would be like to make a film…in the garden,” Petra remembers. “We decided from one moment to the other to make this film, simply because we couldn’t stand the idea that we wouldn’t have work during the Covid period.”

The filmmakers are the subjects of their own documentary. They are a close knit couple who do everything together. At one stage, we even see them cutting each other’s nails. And, no, they didn’t feel nervous about letting viewers into their lives.

“The funny thing is that if you are filming on an almost daily basis, you move from one step to the next step without asking yourself much about what it was going to be like,” Peter suggests. He adds that it “would have been quite unnatural” to leave themselves out of the story. “It was not something we were really craving for, but it was something that had to be done.”

The doc isn’t just about Petra and Peter. It also looks at their friendship with journalist Ingrid Harms and her partner, Hansje Quartel. Ingrid, one of the Netherlands’ best long-form journalists, is suffering from terminal illness. Peter and Petra stay in touch with the couple through constant zoom calls. (It was “much too dangerous” for them to meet face to face given Ingrid’s condition and the threat posed by the virus).

“We’ve known Ingrid for a long time. She was an excellent journalist in a period of time when it was still possible to write long stories in weekly magazines,” Peter says of Harms who was also a film lover with a strong passion for documentary.

Alongside their friends, the filmmakers show remarkable footage of the insects and birds in their garden. Some of this would put the best natural history films to shame. For example, we see a wasp in an epic battle with a spider. What’s more, crows become family friends. “It was labour-intensive,” Peter says of the painstaking work involved in filming the creatures.

“But we loved it,” Petra adds. “It was an endless source of joy.”

By observing nature in such forensic fashion, they both “saw things we’ve never seen before.” Petra marvels at the beauty of ants and aphids. “It sounds crazy but we had a wonderful time filming in our garden in a very limited space.”

Journey Through A World fits into a tradition of documentaries made in confined quarters that also includes Victor Kossakovsky’s Tishe! (2002) shot from a St Petersburg window. As Kossakovsky said: “We don't normally look at things that are right in front of us.”

Peter and Petra have been making films together for many years. They acknowledge that it’s extremely rare for them to argue about anything.

“It’s true what you say, it is quite harmonious,” Peter says of their relationship. Their discussions tend to focus around their work. They sometimes disagree over editing choices, as “in our opinion editing is very serious,” they underline. Petra claims that they have occasionally shouted at one another, but pressed as to when this last happened, she admits: “I think it was years ago!”

Journey Through Our World is produced by L&F Productions. The film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund.
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