Lucy Tsak Tsak (2001)

A tribute to the often-unseen work of a film slate operator. The film shows the hands of a film editor editing the first frames of film, followed by a montage of those initial takes. Throughout, a woman with long black hair consistently claps a slate board at the beginning of each shot. This is Lucy, who affectionately calls her clap "tsak tsak." Her clap is heard at least 55 times throughout the making of the film "Tuvalu" (1999). The credits reveal her impressive career: over 30 years, 56 feature films, 3 documentaries, and 2 series, totaling 7200 claps for each film – nearly half a million in total – and over 382 hours of her image captured on film. She has worked tirelessly behind the scenes, yet has never appeared in a movie until now.