***Advanced tickets for Wednesday, June 18 at 6:15 p.m. have sold out.  Standby tickets will be available at the AFI Silver box office approximately 45 minutes prior to showtime.  Tickets are not guaranteed and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.***

Dust is so ubiquitous that it seems hardly a worthy muse for a documentary. But veteran German filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky has taken extraordinary inspiration from the miniscule particle. From a compulsive housewife engaged in an endless battle against particle profusion, to scientists analyzing the dust from the Twin Towers, to a woman who has created a sophisticated taxonomy of lint bunnies, DUST encourages viewers to ponder the imaginative nature of something that has long escaped imagination.

In the film’s opening sequence, Bitomsky comments, “Film material is nothing but dust adhered to a transparent film base. Film is dust lighting up in the darkness of a movie theater.” And thus, by the illumination of particles dancing across the screen, Bitomsky leads us on a journey that delves with equal awe and appreciation into both the mundane and the majestic. From minute airborne debris to the dust from exploding stars that create solar systems, DUST covers everything.

Bitomsky has a sincere and intoxicating curiosity, which leads him to surprising subjects: domestic cleaners, developers of dust-infiltration systems, health practitioners who study the effects of dust on human bodies, and scientists studying dust and the origins of the universe. The end result is both informative and mesmerizing. Whether you gain a newfound respect for it, or still want to get rid of it, one thing is certain:  you’ll never look at dust the same way again.

—Sky Sitney