What is the value of images as objective testimonies of a conflict? In Dust Breeding, Sarah Vanagt turns her attention to an important chapter in recent European history: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Dust Breeding draws its source material from the accounts of expert witnesses, as well as from the multitude of documents (photos and videos) derived from the still ongoing trial of Radovan Karadžić. In parallel, the filmmaker carries out a series of pencil rubbings inside the tribunal’s courtroom: the movement of her hand and the imprints that are revealed by the pencil onto the paper, show us a landscape of details that were previously imperceptible. This exploration questions the facts, the material proofs of these facts, the images representing those facts, as well as the interpretation of those very images.
