One of the things we learn as children, even if by simply making that mistake, is not to look directly at bright objects, such as the sun or an incandescent lamp, at the risk of damaging our eyesight. However, that does not prevent curiosity from making us occasionally divert our eyes toward these objects, leaving an image marked on the retina for a few moments. Partly inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s experimental Dadaist film “Anémic Cinéma” (1926), “Thorax” seems to defy this restraint by inviting us to stare directly at an incandescent image, at a sort of mechanism that, through variations of disorienting lights and sounds, defies our senses, towards a complete surrender to abstraction. The sequence of shimmering images, which our conscience tries to construe, is immediately followed by the reflection created by our eyes, by the shadows and ghost images left in the unconscious trail of what we see before this light stream. This is the return to Curtas of Austrian filmmaker Siegfried A. Fruhauf, who has become a regular presence at the festival over the years. (JA)