Sunspot

David Blandy / United Kingdom / 2023 / International Premiere / 13 min

On the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, two scientists sat on opposite sides of the world observing sunspots. One in Tokyo, the other in California. The image of the two observatories linked by historical coincidence is the starting point for David Blandy’s poetic archive film about light, time, forest fires and quantum physics. Sunspots were important astronomical phenomena during the war because they could interfere with army radio signals, so the observatories were sharply focussed on the light in the sky. At the same time, an equally powerful light was switched on here on Earth, and the world has never been the same since.