Summary

Shot in the mountains of Austria, Apicula Enigma (translated as the ‘bee’s riddle’) follows the journey of a bee colony. Hugonnier eschews conventions associated with nature documentaries – there is no narrative, staged content or scripted voiceover – instead the film shows the sequence of events as they happened on set. The artist deliberately exposes the process of production, revealing the camera, sound recording equipment, even the film crew. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from historical and literary accounts to recent studies of bee behaviour, Hugonnier considers how the colony and its activity mirrors the world as a whole. Central to this is the idea of the beehive as a camera obscura, a compelling metaphor which is alluded to throughout the course of the film.