Paulien Oltheten is on a journey. Until the end of July, cycles through the Baltic states and a stretch of Poland. She follows the path of the Iron Curtain, the barbed wired line that once divided East and West for such al long time: it felt as if the two halves of the continent lived with their backs turned to each other.
Every so often, Paulien posts short films online. In all the footage from her trip—people drawing water from a spring, birdwatchers on the Finnish side of the border waiting for an eagle from the Russian side—her curiosity outlasts boredom, fear, distaste, or rejection.
In a Russian Orthodox church in Estonia, she meets a young man, someone whose words poor out like a stream of water. A seemingly endless flood of ideas, confessions, and mind-bending remarks pours from his mouth. When watching, repulsion and fascination take turns. What am I supposed to make of this?
Each video feels like an exercise—an exercise in being someone who listens. Giving the people she films a wide frame and taking her time, she sets the right conditions for a conversation to unfold. She listens without losing herself, asks a Russian about the war in Ukraine, a churchgoer about the Orthodox view on queer people.