Avalanche (2009-ongoing) by Carlos Casas

Avalanche is a film about Hichigh, one of the world’s highest inhabited villages in the Pamir mountains (Tajikistan), known as the roof of the world. An audiovisual meditation on disappearance, Avalanche is a research on the relationship between film, music and landscape: a physical as well as a mental experience, transporting the spectator into a state of flotation. One of the most unknown regions in the world, the Pamirs are as mysterious as fascinating, home of some of the most ancient and well kept traditions in the world.The film follows the dusk of a village bound to disappear, just before it becomes a ghost village, just before its stones and mud houses become part of the mountain again.

Avalanche is a work in progress, and a site specific film, as Casas adapts and reedits the film in relation to the context on which is presented. Its soundtrack, composed by Phil Niblock, focuses on sound textures created by multiple tones in very dense, often atonal tunings performed in long durations.