D&B Films

Anyone who engages with D&B Films encounters a production house that has systematically dissolved the boundaries between documentary film and experimental cinema since the 1990s. The two founders—both with strong backgrounds in Fine Arts and Film Theory—have developed a working principle that fundamentally differs from classical production: they think in decades, not budget cycles. This is palpable on set. The crews work with a patience that would be unthinkable in commercial cinema.

The company is known for projects that take their time—not to achieve perfection, but to sediment truth. In "Gerry," for instance, it wasn't about suspense or narrative in the classic sense, but about documenting states of waiting, of boredom as a productive force. The camera remains still, observes, records. This requires a completely different approach to lighting, editing, and монтаж—less is not the word here. Rather: the little becomes everything. In "Taxidermia," on the other hand, the experimental practice was translated into a more narrative form without losing the documentary gaze. The boundary deliberately blurs.

For cinematographers working with D&B, this means: technical perfection is secondary to visual endurance. It's about capturing a state—and for that, you don't need the most expensive equipment, but conceptual clarity and patience. Lighting often follows documentary principles: natural, minimal, respectful of the space. Editing in these works is not dramaturgical in the conventional sense, but rhythmic—tempos that stretch and condense like breathing.

The company influences an entire generation of filmmakers who have understood that "experimental" doesn't have to be synonymous with "formally playful." It can also mean: rigorous, conceptually strict, political. D&B rarely works with festivals in the classic sense—the films find their venues more in museums, exhibitions, retrospectives, where time itself is an exhibition material. This changes the entire production logic.