BISFF2025 | Correspondence 通信计划061：Lichens Are the Way 地衣之道

BISFF Correspondence 通信计划

This program involves conducting brief email interviews with the directors of the international films featured in the festival, in lieu of the traditional Q&A session that follows the screenings. Through this program, we hope to provide a platform for filmmakers to discuss their work and share their insights with our audience in China.

为了跨越种种障碍，开辟更多交流空间，我们设置了“BISFF Correspondence 通信计划”，对部分国际单元的参展作者进行系列访谈，这些访谈将在作品放映后发布在联展各个媒体平台。

Lichens Are the Way | 地衣之道

Ondrej Vavrecka 翁德雷·瓦夫列奇卡

2024 | 00:43:00 | Czech Republic, Slovakia | English | Asian Premiere

Director: Ondrej Vavrecka

Interviewer & Translator: Pincent Liu

Coordinator & Editor: Suliko

导演：翁德雷·瓦夫列奇卡

采访、翻译：刘品呈

统筹、编辑：苏丽珂

Q1: The film opens with a powerful thesis: every species comes to the world with its own music and the story it implies, and humans must choose which kind of story to be embedded in. You refer to a story that "denies life and sends us and the rest of the world into crisis". Could you expand on this "life-denying" story? Does it specifically relate to humanity’s relentless pursuit of "more," which stands in direct opposition to the concept of "ecological sufficiency" exemplified by lichen?

A1: Just to clarify, this sentence is not spoken by me but by the main guide of the film, the lichenologist Trevor Goward.

I believe Trevor simply sees the world around him very clearly and from a global perspective. And from that perspective, unfortunately, the outlook for the human species is not very good. The dominant way of thinking is based on the expectation that tomorrow there will always be more. At the same time, our everyday lives rely on materials and resources that are limited. In this context, there is not much reason for optimism.

Humanity is very fragile. One only has to notice how precisely tuned we are to a certain temperature range. Just a few degrees above or below this comfort zone becomes unpleasant for us. Our fragility is also evident in our dependence on what we ourselves create and must constantly maintain, such as electricity, transport systems, hospitals, and other infrastructures.

Planet Earth will survive. The Earth is extraordinarily fertile in creating diverse forms of life. Its organic and inorganic power as a whole is incredible. The only question is whether we, as humans, will survive on it.

Q2: Curtis, one of the botanical research experts in the film, shares his initial feeling that lichen was "ugly" before developing a fascination. Lichen, with its diversity, unique looking, and plasticity, must also hold a great attraction for you. As a visual artist, could you discuss your initial impression upon encountering lichen? Do you think the visually "amorphous" and "assembled" nature of lichen has influenced your artistic practice?

A2: My nature, as well as the environment in which I grew up, naturally leads me to pay attention to what stands at the margins. Even though there is an equally strong tendency in me to stand at the center, in its sharp and penetrating light, there is at the same time a strong force that drives me to bend down, to approach gently, to kneel.

This position allows me to see and be close to what is not at the center but shows the boundaries of how it is possible to exist. And lichens are one example of this.

I grew up close to a forest, and observing micro-landscapes of shrubs, mosses, and lichens, and imagining what it would be like to shrink and live in that landscape, felt completely natural to me. In fact, something from this world appears in every one of my previous films, whether it is fungi, mold, wood structures, and so on.

Only now do I realize that this morphological sensitivity is not self-evident and that it is becoming part of an important branch of contemporary art and philosophy.

And back to Curtis. I partially share his original view of lichens as something “ugly.” I would not put it this way directly, but subconsciously I have used the natural micro-world I described above as a kind of provocation. As something that seemingly does not belong to our everyday world.

For an urban person, it appears strange. They do not know it, but I do. I show them lichens, fungi, polypores, molds, I wink at them with one eye, and I am curious to see how they deal with something that is completely normal in nature but appears avant-garde to a city person.

Lichens Are the Way, Ondrej Vavrecka, 2024

Q3: There are many static long shots (fixed wide views) of natural landscapes in the film, besides the close-ups of the lichens. Could you discuss the intent behind these static shots? Are they perhaps simulating the human state of slowing down, observing, and co-existing? In some of these shots, Curtis walks nude or interacts with his dog, conveying an attitude of relaxed co-existence with the natural environment. Can you discuss a bit about the relationship between this state of human life and the lichen's way of living?

A3: While making the film, we decided to try to become lichens. We set certain rules for ourselves that allowed us to get at least a little closer to this “lichen state.”

This also relates to the previous question, because lichens themselves create landscapes that are analogous to macro-landscapes. In the film, there are wide shots of landscapes and close details of lichens. These two types of images resemble each other very much. But it is not only this. The shots of lichens often depict enormous specimens, sometimes up to three meters wide, but the framing does not allow the viewer to understand the real scale. And this was precisely our intention. The micro and the macro scale begin to resemble each other, analogous to what the Emerald Tablet says: as above, so below. Some of Curtis’s ancestors come from the original inhabitants of the so-called American continent. For him, being naked in nature, that is, at home, is therefore much more natural.

And their dog Kabuki, with whom Curtis in particular interacts, functions between Curtis and Trevor as a kind of tertium comparationis. Kabuki, and I am not exaggerating since I myself had a dog, probably has the best life of any dog in the world. She is treated as an equal being. She does not receive commands but suggestions on how to behave. She has learned to understand around three hundred words.

She naturally acts as a flow of energy between Curtis and Trevor.

Although the couple may appear relaxed, their life is very demanding. Their house is surrounded by a vast educational center of nature that they have been building for years. They work on their research, write articles and books, and grow their own food.

They are trying to survive. Just like a lichen.

They try to get closer to it, even though this is not always possible, which is explicitly expressed at the end of the film.

Many years ago, Trevor decided that in order to understand what life is, he must understand it as space. And we orient ourselves in space through trigonometry. We need three points of reference.

Throughout his life, he therefore asks three questions: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a dog? And what does it mean to be a lichen? His knowledge arises precisely from this triangulation.

Q4: In the final segment of the film, we witness Trevor and Curtis's lifestyle, which embodies the "ecological sufficiency" practiced by lichen—setting an almost Utopian example for the audience. However, Curtis eventually has to leave for other work, making compromises to sustain their ideal life in nature. Why did you choose to place this complex, perhaps slightly contradictory, reality at the end of the film? How do you view the tension between the ideal and survival that the "Lichen Way" inevitably faces? Is the divergence and temporary separation between these two individuals an echo of the lichen symbiosis principle—that "the part must view itself as part of the whole"?

A4: In the film, things need to unfold gradually. It is, in a way, a form of seduction. The film seduces the viewer into overcoming obstacles. A viewer who cannot endure the opening three-minute shot is, in a sense, lost for the film. But that is not a problem. It is like an entry ticket the film offers. After that, the film becomes more welcoming and slowly opens its arms.

It gently invites us into the specific world of lichens, only to present the greatest obstacle at the end. Despite the fact that the film’s guides, Trevor and Curtis, try to live in a way that requires little and does not unnecessarily burden the planet, they do not fully succeed to live like a lichen.

What might initially feel like a pseudo-romantic film thus transforms into a film of transformation. They themselves know that they are not living ideally. Yet, as is said at the beginning of the film, they still hold hope, even if it is a dark hope, that things can be changed.

In this way, they invite us into their home. Each of us, through our own lives, which are just as full of compromises as theirs, can change something. The first step is to see oneself in a broader context, as part of a whole.

This crossing over, which in religious discourse is called transcendence, is essential. And lichens show this to the human body very precisely. In order to think in broad contexts, we must first be able to see the smallest ones. And in order to see a lichen, we must stop and bend down toward it.

Lichens Are the Way, Ondrej Vavrecka, 2024

Q5: The soundscape in the film is quite rich, particularly in the static shots of the natural wide views mentioned in Question 3, where the sound enhances the audience's association with the opening-mentioned concept of the "music of all things." I also noticed that different types of lichen seem to be accompanied by different sound effects. Could you share your considerations for the sound design in this film?

A5: When recording sound in a landscape with a single microphone, it does not sound the way we later hear it in a cinema. Together with the fact that almost the entire film is asynchronous and based on the idea that every living organism has its own music, we consciously constructed the soundscapes.

We used local sounds, layering them, placing them spatially within the cinema space, and building a kind of sonic mass that allows the viewer to be seductively immersed in the artificial presence of the film. The film does not replace nature, but it can teach us how to hear nature.

This is one part of the soundtrack, a kind of re-modelling of soundscapes.

The second part was the question of how the soundscapes of the lichens themselves should sound. Of course, they are surrounded by the sounds of the landscape, which we selected and constructed partly according to where the lichen naturally grows and partly according to how it is filmed.

Each lichen, through its appearance and way of existing, is a specific personality. Yet something was still missing in the soundtrack. The language of lichens.

They are, after all, personalities. Their names appear in the end credits. But how does a lichen speak when it produces no sound? It expresses itself through the way it lives. But how does it sound?

I answered this question in the following way. If “Lichens Are the Way,” if spending time among them truly taught me something, and it did, at the very least it calmed me and deepened me, then I felt a desire to reciprocate and to teach them something as well, at least on the symbolic level of the film we created.

So in the film, I also give each lichen a voice using my own body: my voice, the sound of the microphone rubbing against my beard, lip smacks, and similar gestures. In this way, we tuned ourselves to each other.

Q6: You hold multiple identities as a film director, a cross-disciplinary artist, and a scholar. Has the lichen’s way of living brought you any other shareable reflections or inspiration in your other artistic creations or academic practices, beyond filmmaking? Is there a continuity in any way between your more recent work, 1+1+1, and this film?

A6: I came across Trevor and Curtis in an American Science magazine I bought on my way back from a conference in Manchester. I was giving a lecture there on montage across film, visual art, and philosophy. This is one of my long-term themes.

When I read in the article how many different ways a lichen is, in fact, a union of various elements, I immediately wanted to build a theory and practice of montage based on lichens. A way of connecting things together in a living manner.

All human creation is based on connecting. What we create is what we connect – and disconnect. Lichens, which can sustain themselves with very little, have countless visual forms and grow almost everywhere on the planet, seemed to me to be ideal guides in this respect. They are good in connectivity.

I began to study lichens and an immense field opened up before me. I became interested in the structure of their bodies and wanted to experience, on my own skin, their relationship to minimalism and self-sufficiency. I created lichen images made from waste materials:  http://www.ondrejvavrecka.cz/icyc.html. I made a film about them that was shown at your festival. I am now creating large-scale watercolors inspired by the way lichens manage water: http://www.ondrejvavrecka.cz/ekonomie.html, and http://www.ondrejvavrecka.cz/ekonomie2.html.

I have also lectured about lichens in Algeria as a model of pedagogical exchange.

At the same time, I made a film about the fragile boundary between the past and the future, reflecting on where we, as humanity and as individuals, should be heading: http://www.ondrejvavrecka.cz/1a1a1.html. In the film 1+1+1, which deals with the idea of progress in the broadest sense and moves between fiction, documentary, and musical scenes, lichens also appear.

Currently, I am working on a film that explores storytelling and listening to stories, which is also the theme that opens “Lichens Are the Way”.

The space in which I create, share, and communicate is essentially always the same. It emerges from concrete, material, or personal situations and encounters. It is a kind of dancing way of asking questions about relationships, vividness, and depth through which lightness quietly grows.

Q1：影片开头提出了一个强有力的论点：每个物种都伴随着自己的音乐旋律和故事，而人类必须选择融入哪种故事。您提到了一种“否定生命并让我们和整个世界陷入危机”的故事，能否详细谈谈这种“否定生命”的故事？它是否指代人类对“更多”的无止境追求？这种追求恰恰与地衣所体现的“生态充足”（ecological sufficiency）的理念背道而驰。

A1：需要说明一下，这句话并非出自我本人之口，而是出自这部电影的主要引导者，地衣学家特雷弗·高沃德（Trevor Goward）。

我相信特雷弗只是非常清晰地、从全球视角审视着他周围的世界。遗憾的是，从这个视角来看，人类物种的前景确实不太乐观。当下主流的思维模式建立在一种“明天总会拥有更多”的执念之上，而我们的日常生活却依赖着有限的物质与资源。在这样的现实下，我们并没有太多理由保持乐观。人类是非常脆弱的，只需留意一下我们对特定温度范围的适应性是多么精确且严苛。只要偏离这个舒适区几度，我们就会感到不适。我们的脆弱性还体现在我们对自身创造物的依赖上，比如电力、交通系统、医院及其他基础设施，这些都需要我们持续维护才能运转。

地球会幸存下来的。地球孕育着极其丰富的生命形式，其有机与无机力量的整体令人惊叹。唯一的问题在于，作为人类的我们，是否还能继续在地球上生存。

Q2：片中的生物研究专家柯蒂斯分享了他最初觉得地衣“丑陋”的感受，随后才转为迷恋。而地衣的多样性、独特外形和可塑性对您一定也很有吸引力。作为一位视觉艺术家，能否谈谈您自己最初接触地衣时的感受？地衣在视觉上“无定形”和“被组建”的特质，对您的艺术创作是否产生了影响？

A2：我的本性，以及我成长的环境，自然而然地引导我去关注那些处于边缘的事物。尽管我内心同样强烈地想要站在中心，沐浴在锐利而刺眼的光芒中，但同时又有一种强大的力量驱使我俯下身，轻轻靠近，甚至跪下身去。

这种姿态让我得以看见并亲近那些不处于中心却展现了生存边界的事物。地衣就是其中一个例子。

我从小在森林附近长大，对我来说，观察灌木、苔藓和地衣构成的微观景观，想象自己缩小后栖居其中的情景，对我而言再自然不过。事实上，这个世界的痕迹出现在我之前的每一部电影中——无论是真菌、霉菌，还是木质结构等等。

直到现在我才意识到这种对形态的敏感性并非不言自明，它正逐渐成为当代艺术和哲学的一个重要分支。

再说回柯蒂斯，我部分认同他最初认为地衣“丑陋”的看法。我不会直接这么说，但在潜意识里我确实将上述自然微观世界用作一种“挑衅”，作为某种看似不属于我们日常世界的事物。

对都市人而言，这些事物显得陌生，他们不了解，但我很熟悉。我向他们展示地衣、真菌、多孔菌和霉菌，对他们眨眨眼，好奇他们如何看待这些在自然界中完全正常，但在都市人眼中却显得很前卫的事物。

Lichens Are the Way, Ondrej Vavrecka, 2024

Q3：在地衣的微观近景之外，影片中穿插了大量固定镜头（静态远景）来拍摄自然景观。能否谈谈这些静态镜头的用意？它们是否在模拟人类“放慢节奏、观察并共处”的状态？在这些镜头中，柯蒂斯赤身走过，或与狗互动，传递了一种与自然环境轻松共处的姿态。您如何看待这种人类生活状态与地衣的生存之道之间的关系？

A3：在制作这部电影时，我们决定尝试成为地衣。我们为自己设定了某些规则，让自己至少能更接近这种“地衣状态”。

这也与前一个问题相关，因为地衣本身所构成的景观与宏观景观具有相似性。影片中既有地貌的广角全景，也有地衣的特写细节。这两种影像彼此之间非常相似。

但不仅如此，地衣的镜头通常呈现的是巨大的标本，有的宽度甚至达到三米，但构图上却不让观众感知到真实的比例，这正是我们的意图所在。微观与宏观的尺度开始相互映照，正如《翠玉录》（Emerald Tablet）所言：“如其在上，如其在下（As above, so below）。”

柯蒂斯的祖先部分源自所谓美洲大陆的原住民。对他而言，赤身裸体地置身于自然之中（即置身于“家”中）因此显得再自然不过。

他们的狗叫“卡布奇”（Kabuki），柯蒂斯与她互动尤其多，它在柯蒂斯与特雷弗之间充当着一种“第三参照物”的角色。卡布奇可能过着世界上最幸福的生活（我自己也养过狗，所以这么说并不夸张）。她被当作一个平等的生命来对待，她收到的不是命令，而是行为建议，她已经习得理解大约三百个单词。

她自然而然地成为了柯蒂斯和特雷弗之间流动的能量。

尽管这对伴侣看起来悠然自得，但他们的生活其实非常辛苦。他们居住的房子被巨大的“自然教育中心”所环绕，这是他们花费多年建设的。他们从事研究、撰写文章和著作，并自己种植食物。他们努力生存，就像地衣一样。

他们试图更贴近自然，尽管这并不总能实现，这一点在影片结尾得到了明确的体现。

多年前，特雷弗认定，要理解生命是什么，就必须将其作为“空间”来理解。而我们通过三角学（trigonometry）在空间中确定自身的位置，我们需要三个参考点。因此他毕生追问三个问题：作为人类意味着什么？作为狗意味着什么？作为地衣意味着什么？他的知识正是源于这种“三角测量”（triangulation）。

Q4：影片最后一个部分中特雷弗和柯蒂斯的生活方式体现了地衣“生态充足”的共生之道，为观众描绘了一个如同乌托邦的样本。然而，柯蒂斯为维持这种理想生活方式需要外出工作并做出妥协，为什么会将这种复杂的、也许带有一点矛盾性的现实生活处境置于影片结尾？您如何看待这种“地衣之道”在现实中必然产生的理想与生存之间的张力？两位共同生活的人物之间的不同与暂时分离，是否也是对地衣的共生方式中“部分必须将自己视作整体的一部分”这一原则的呼应？

A4：在电影中，事物需要循序渐进地展开，某种程度上这是一种诱惑。电影诱使观众去跨越障碍。如果有观众无法忍受开场那长达三分钟的镜头，那么在某种意义上他们便已经“错失”这部电影了。但这并非问题，这就像电影提供的一张入场券。在那之后，电影会变得更加平易近人，缓缓张开双臂。

它温柔地邀请我们进入地衣的独特世界，却在结尾处抛出最大的障碍。尽管影片中的向导特雷弗和柯蒂斯努力以一种低欲望的方式生活，尽量避免给地球增添负担，但他们并未能完全成功地做到“像地衣一样生活”。

这部看似带有某种“伪浪漫”气息的影片，由此最终转化成了一部关于转化（transformation）的电影。他们清醒地知道自己的生活并不理想。然而，正如影片开头所言，他们仍然持有希望，即便这是一种黑暗的希望，他们依然相信事物是能够改变的。

通过这种方式，他们邀请我们进入他们的家园。我们每个人都可以通过自己的生活（尽管同样充满妥协）来改变一些事情。第一步是将自己置于更广阔的背景中，视自己为整体的一部分。

这种跨越（在宗教语境中被称为“超脱[transcendence]”）是至关重要的，而地衣向人类身体非常精准地展示了这一点。为了在更广阔的语境下思考，我们必须首先能够观察到最微小的存在。而要看见一株地衣，我们必须停下脚步，向它俯身。

Lichens Are the Way, Ondrej Vavrecka, 2024

Q5：影片的声景非常丰富，尤其在以上提到的自然远景等静态固定镜头中，声音增强了观众对开头所提到的“万物旋律”这一概念的联想。我也有注意到不同种类的地衣被赋予了不同的音效，能否分享您在本片声音设计上的考量？

A5：当用单支麦克风录制自然景观的环境音时，它听起来与我们后来在影院里听到的声音并不一样。再加上几乎整部电影的声音都是非同步的，且基于“每个生命有机体都有其专属音乐”这一理念，我们有意识地构建了这些声景。

我们使用了当地的声音，将它们分层叠加，并在影院空间中进行立体定位，构建出一种声音的质感，让观众沉浸于影片所营造的人工氛围之中。影片并非要取代自然，而是教会我们如何聆听自然。

这是声轨的一部分，是对声景的一种重塑。

第二部分则是地衣本身的声景应当如何呈现的问题。当然，它们被周围环境的声音所环绕，这些声音的选取和构建，一部分基于地衣的自然生长环境，另一部分则取决于拍摄方式。

每一种地衣通过其外观和生存方式都展现出独特的个性，然而声轨中仍然缺少一些东西，那就是地衣的语言。

毕竟，它们是个性化的存在，它们的名字出现在片尾字幕中。但是，当一种地衣不发出任何声音时，它要如何表达呢？地衣通过它自身的生存方式来表达自己，但这听起来究竟是怎样的呢？

我这样回答这个问题：如果“地衣即道”，如果与它们相处真的教会了我一些东西（事实也确实如此，它们至少让我平静下来，也让我的内心更加深邃），那么我就渴望回馈它们，也想教给它们些什么，至少在我们共同创作的这部电影的象征层面上是如此。

因此，在影片中，我也用自己的身体为每种地衣赋予了声音：我的嗓音、麦克风摩擦胡须的沙沙声、咂嘴声以及类似的动作。通过这种方式，我们彼此调谐共振。

Q6：您身兼电影导演、跨领域艺术家、学者等多重身份。除了在电影创作上，地衣的生活之道是否也为您在其他艺术创作或学术实践的领域带来了可以分享的思考和启发？您后续的作品《1+1+1》与本片是否存在着某种延续性？

A6：我是在从曼彻斯特参加完一个会议回来的路上，买了一本《科学美国人》（Scientific American）杂志，偶然读到了关于特雷弗和柯蒂斯的文章。当时我在会上做了一场关于电影、视觉艺术与哲学之间的蒙太奇的讲座，这是我长期研究的主题之一。

当我在文章中读到，地衣实际上是以多种不同的方式成为多种元素的结合体时，我立刻想要构建一套基于地衣的蒙太奇理论与实践。这是一种将事物以生命形态的鲜活方式连接起来的方法。

人类所有的创造都基于连接。我们所创造的，正是我们所连接及断开连接的。地衣仅需极少的资源便能维系生命，却拥有无数种视觉形态，且几乎遍布全球，在我看来，它们是这方面理想的向导。它们擅长连接之道。

我开始研究地衣，一片广阔的领域在我面前展开。我对它们的身体结构产生了兴趣，并渴望亲身感悟它们与极简主义和自给自足之间的关系。我用废弃材料创作了地衣图像：http://www.ondrejvavrecka.cz/icyc.html 。

我还为它们制作了一部电影，就是你们的电影节放映的这部。目前，我正在创作以地衣的水分管理方式为灵感的大型水彩画。参见：http://www.ondrejvavrecka.cz/ekonomie.html

http://www.ondrejvavrecka.cz/ekonomie2.html

此外，我还曾在阿尔及利亚举办过关于地衣的讲座，将其作为一种教学交流的范例。

与此同时，我制作了一部关于过去与未来之间脆弱边界的电影，反思我们作为人类和个体应该走向何方（参见http://www.ondrejvavrecka.cz/1a1a1.html）。

在影片《1+1+1》中，地衣也同样出现了，这部电影探讨了广义上的进步理念，并在虚构、纪录和音乐场景之间游走。

目前，我正在创作一部探索讲故事和听故事的电影，而这也正是《地衣之道》开篇的主题。

我创作、分享与交流的空间本质上始终如一，它源于具体的、物质的或个人的情境与相遇。这是一种“舞动之道”，在一系列关于关系、鲜活感与深度的问题中，某种轻盈悄然生长。

About the Artist 艺术家简介

Ondřej Vavrečka, PhD. is a award winning filmmaker, an artist, a filmmaker, a musician, a scholar and a teacher. Based in programming then changed into philosophy and linguistics. Except of making films he performs with his musical band, and writes on cinema. He teaches at Film Academy, Prague, Czech Republic. His web is www.ondrejvavrecka.cz.

翁德雷·瓦夫列奇卡博士是一位屡获殊荣的电影人、艺术家、音乐人、学者与教师。他最初专攻程序设计，后转向哲学与语言学。除电影创作外，他还活跃于乐队演出，并撰写影像相关研究。目前，他在捷克布拉格电影学院任教。

About the Author 作者简介

Pincent LIU is a film programmer. He serves as the Head of Short Film Programming for Wuhan bailin Film Festival, a curator for Chinese Film Festival Hamburg, and a pre-selector for Hainan Island International Film Festival and Onion City Experimental Film Festival. Additionally, he is a programmer, translator, and editor for the Dufang Film Program. He previously served as the Director of Public Practice at Wuhan Photography Art Centre, where he curated over 30 screening programs, including special programs for multiple editions of Wuhan Art Book Fair. His recent curatorial program is “Night Calls: Hidden Gems by Female Filmmakers in the 1980s” for WbFF 2025.

刘品呈是一位影像策展人，他是武汉柏林电影周的短片节目负责人、汉堡华语影像展的策展人，曾作为选片人参与海南岛国际电影节和芝加哥洋葱城实验电影节的选片工作。此外，他是独放的选片人、译者与编辑。他曾任武汉影像艺术中心的公共教育总监，期间策划了三十余场放映与交流活动，囊括武汉艺术书展期间的影像节目策划。他最近的策展项目是“我们拥有夜晚：八十年代女性导演选集”。

▌more information: https://www.bisff.co/selection/lichens-are-the-way