In der Nacht fliegt die Seele weiteI

Being blind does not mean seeing nothing. Being blind means seeing differently.” These are the words of the protagonist of the new documentary film “In der Nacht fliegt die Seele weiter” (At night, the soul flies on). The film about the blind artist – she paints, takes photographs and shoots videos – and family woman Pina Dolce was made by the well-known author and radio journalist Peter Jaeggi from Niederwil.

Peter Jaeggi first met Pina Dolce in the 1990s during a radio report about the restaurant ‘Blinde Kuh’ in Zurich. This restaurant is dark, and blind people serve the food. ‘I was impressed by her commitment,’ recalls Peter Jaeggi. ‘She is not someone who goes through life weighed down by fate. Quite the opposite.’ Over the years, a deep friendship has developed, including with her family, a friendship that has now culminated in a joint film: ‘Without this basis of trust, I would never have been able to make such a film.’

How did the film project come about? It has to do with gemstones and a coincidence. Peter Jaeggi actually wanted to make a documentary about an old opal miner in Australia. He already had Ivo Kummer, then owner of Insertfilm AG in Solothurn, on his side. But the opal miner fell ill – and that was the end of the film. Then Peter Jaeggi told him about his friendship with the blind artist Pina Dolce in Basel. No opal, but another beautiful gemstone was found: ‘Well, two weeks later, Ivo Kummer and I were sitting in Pina’s kitchen,’ says Peter Jaeggi. That was three and a half years ago; the film is now finished.
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Pina Dolce, now 43 years old, lost her sight completely at the age of 15. This sensitive but unsentimental film neither glosses over nor dramatises anything. Pina Dolce completes her Bachelor of Arts degree in Boston, then studies at the University of Freiburg, marries Urs Hodel, and gives birth to her son Viviano, now 4 years old. Pina begins painting a large picture entitled ‘In der Nacht fliegt die Seele weiter’ (At night, the soul flies on); its creation runs like a thread through the documentary, which ends with a glamorous vernissage for the exhibition of her paintings. The film is intense. But some scenes are particularly moving: you sense that Pina is painting in the dark in her room. The door opens – light floods in – Urs calls everyone to dinner, the door closes again, darkness.
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In another scene, little Viviano tries to insert his mother’s glass eyes with childlike enthusiasm. Or the part of the film where Pina Dolce says that she had come to terms with her blindness – until the birth of her son. She cannot see his smile, cannot follow him today when he calls, ‘Mummy, look.’ It breaks her heart. And: Can you answer for yourself the question she asks on one of her artworks in Boston: ‘What is more important? Being able to see or being able to cry?’

Being blind means seeing differently. What does Peter Jaeggi see differently after his film? ‘I feel confirmed in my belief that being blind does not mean seeing nothing. What we see is always subjective. There is no such thing as one truth in any area of life.’ This subjectivity can be tested. Close your eyes, open your ears: on Peter Jaeggi’s website www.peterjaeggi.ch or on CD, you can listen to the sounds of the former Weissenstein chairlift. What images come to mind? What does he see, what do you see? What images would Pina Dolce see while listening? Always different ones. And none of them has a monopoly on the truth.

Information: ‘At night, the soul continues to fly.’ A film by Peter Jaeggi (director) with Pina Dolce, Urs Hodel, Viviano. Camera: Daniel Leippert. Sound: Olivier JeanRichard. Editing: Fränze Aerni. Production: Insertfilm AG Solothurn. Broadcast: Sunday, 15 December 2013, at 11:55 a.m. on the programme ‘Sternstunde Kunst’ (Art’s Moment of Glory), Swiss Television SRF1.