Carlos Molinero and Lola Salvador
35 mm. 87 minutes. Spain. 2005



The Mist in the Palm Trees is probably the first quantum movie in film history: an experimental documentary that deals with memory, history, science and images. These concepts are present throughout the film bound like quarks: elementary particles in quantum theory that cannot be separated. The Mist in the Palm Trees is a foundational movie, a science fiction essay, a film about science in history, about history in fiction, that deals with meaning and interpretation of images and, therefore, with function and manipulation of history.

The Mist in the Palm Trees is divided into five episodes that correspond to the quark properties: Strangeness, Charm, Beauty, Truth and Colour, plus an epilogue named after the physicist Higgs, who claimed that a new particle would be discovered.

The Mist in the Palm Trees is also the adventure of a photographer from Asturias called Santiago Bergson, from his early years as a physics student in Germany in the 1920’s to his participation in the Manhattan Project which led to the development of the atomic bomb. But the story takes us beyond the exciting biographical facts: it shows us the inner journey of someone in the process of disappearing while his voice transmits us his testimony, his commitment, his vital legacy.

It is also rigourous, yet subjective research, the result of two years of editing. The film is full of emotion because The Mist in the Palm Trees is also a love story, a story about photographs as substitutes for memories and about memories as substitutes for love, about war as destroyer of memory, and science as a double-edged weapon, always dangerous and often used in a destructive way.

There is fiction and non fiction in this film, fully based on archive material. The images that we have gathered are incredibly appealing, the result of painstaking research in different sources: from 1900’s photographs to 1920’s home movies (pathé babies) , 20th century discoveries in modern physics or 1920-30’s documentaries from Asturias, Cuba, United States, Germany and France, and World War II images.

These are the images. Now it´s up to you to remember them in different ways, to rearrange them, to open your eyes and consider the limits of reality and fiction suggested by The Mist in the Palm Trees.

We invite you to question Santiago Bergson´s words…
What good is an image for, if it cannot save a man’s life?