Martina Mäsiarová

This is a picture of my friend Denis. We went into the mountains one summer night to watch shooting stars. It was completely dark, not even the moon was shining. I randomly pointed my camera somewhere into the darkness where I thought Denis would be sitting. The tiny red dot of his cigarette helped me find him.

We found a great place to camp on the top of the hill, with the whole valley spreading below us. I used to do this with my father when I was a kid, and he would teach me about the sky and the constellations of the stars. The night progressed, and we were surrounded by absolute darkness and silence and soft noises of animal steps. Suddenly, down in the valley, a huge tent bursted into light and noise. Like a helicopter taking off. We couldn’t fall asleep or even look at the stars, so we made up stories about the mysterious tent — could it be a site for ritual murders? A party tent? A UFO? The mafia cooking drugs?

The next day we found out they were shooting a movie there.