Not a single cloud ever seems to drift across this sky, the sun never ceases to send its powerful rays down. Here, in southern California, where the San Andreas Fault has created an unmistakable topography and invisible water currents run under the barren soil, date palms thrive best: feet in water, head on fire. Terra Long has looked around, traced the history of the plants which originally came to North America from the Middle East, and visited the parades and festivities dedicated to the sugary fruit. Layer by layer, she constructs her very own perspective on the landscape and the people, translates her haptic impressions into magnificent 16mm shots and designs a complex soundtrack.

Long manages to join the past and present and produce a concise, quasi sensual extract. The laborious manual pollination of the date palms plays a role in it, as do the collapsed ecosystem of the Salton Sea, archived dresses of Arabian Nights beauty queens and interviews that testify only to what is now historical; as do elderly white couples floating in their pools and walking across the lawns of golf courses. “Feet in Water, Head on Fire” is a document of simultaneity that captivates from the first minute to the last.

Biology lesson. On one side the teacher in the light of the entomology projection, on the other the classroom in semi-darkness. Attention is slackening. Adolescent daydreaming: The boy at the desk in front is actually quite cute. The fingers want to run off. Still, rather touch only oneself at first. But then there is a spark …

Having a crush, what a beautiful and intense, but equally fleeting and sobering moment. Eyes, nose, ear, mouth and hands go on their first physical explorations, breathtaking, deviant or repulsive. Zhen Li observes with microscopic precision and magnificently captures this exceptional state of mind with different animation techniques. Charcoal drawings with smeared marks, furry waves of mould, intricately animated bodies and buzzing, sticky sounds circumscribe the sensual surge.