FILM IST. a girl & a gun
Film drama in 5 acts
FILM IST. a girl & a gun is a film drama in 5 acts about one of the oldest topics in cinematography and in the history of mankind: the confrontation of the sexes.
From the Genesis of the universe and the world by collaboration and confrontation of the gods of creation, to the innocent cohabitation of men and women in the state of Paradise, to desire, temptation, love, jealousy, and hate between the sexes under the sign of Eros, to the escalation and violent repression and exploitation of the sexes in war and pornography reflected in Thanatos’ mirror, over to the solutions and enlightenment offered by religion and politics in the dialog of Symposium, film fragments from the first four and a half centuries of cinematography were researched and reassembled into sequence of pictures and stories and thereby given new meaning as to their original content.
For this hypnotizing exploration of cinema as an expression of either Thanatos or Eros, international-flim-archive spelunker Gustav Deutsch starts with D.W. Griffith‘s maxim (revived by Godard) that all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun. Assembling bits from ethnographic films, war footage, science documentaries, early porn reels, and scenes from 1930s narrative Euro features, Deutsch uncannily collapses all boundaries between the genres, suggesting a feverish celluloid dream –or nightmare.
Village Voice
Cullen Gallagher, "Tale of cinema", The L magazine, 1.5.2009
Richard Kuipers, "Film Ist. a Girl & a Gun", Variety, 16.8.2009
Script, Realisation, Editing
Gustav Deutsch
Research
Hanna Schimek, Gustav Deutsch
Supervisory Artist
Hanna Schimek
Music
Christian Fennesz, Martin Siewert, Burkhard Stangl
Additional Music
Bohren & Der Club of Gore, David Grubbs, Olga Neuwirth, Lucia Pulido, Soap & Skin.
Production
loop-media
Producer
Manfred Neuwirth
Cooperation
Österreichisches Filmmuseum, Filmarchiv Austria, Netherlands Filmmuseum, Cinemateca di Bologna, Imperial War Museum, Kinsey Institute, Centre National de la Cinematographie, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung, Cinémathèque de Toulouse, Filmmuseum Turin, Bundesarchiv Filmarchiv.
Festival placements, till August 2009
Rotterdam 2009 - 38. Int. Filmfestival 21.01.09
Paris - 31. Cinéma du réel 09 05.03.09
Diagonale 2009 - Festival des österr. 17.03.09
Hong Kong 09 - Intern.Film Festival 23.03.09
Buenos Aires 09 - Int. Independent 25.03.09
Osnabrück 09 - Europ. Media Art 22.04.09
NY - Tribeca Film Festival 2009 22.04.09
Lissabon 09 - Indielisboa 23.04.09
Seoul 09 - Jeonju International Film 30.04.09
München 09 - 23. Int. 09.05.09
Zürich 2009 - VIDEOEXperimental; 21.05.09
Seattle 09 - International Film Festival 22.05.09
Pesaro 09 - 45. Film Festival 21.06.09
La Rochelle 2009 - Int. Film Festival 26.06.09
Marseille 09 - Fidmarseille 02.07.09
Wroclaw 09 –!New Horizons 23.07.09
Melbourne 2009 - Int. Film Festival 24.07.09
Brisbane 09 - Int. Film Festival 30.07.09
Seoul 09 - Chungmuro International 24.08.09
Seoul 09 - EXis 10.09.09
Paris 09 - L´Etrange Festival 12.9.2009
Zagreb 09 - 25fps Video Festival 22.09.09
Milwaukee International Film Festival 24.09.09
Kaunas 2009 International Film Festival 01.10.09
Montréal 09 - Festival du nouveau 07.10.09
London 09 - 53. Film Festival 14.10.09
Jihlava 2009 - Documentary Film 27.10.09
Leeds 2009 - Int. Film Festival 04.11.09
Kolkata Film Festival 2009 10.11.09
Denver 09 - International Film Festival 11.11.09
Inverness 09 - Inverness Film Festival 12.11.09
Thessaloniki 09 - Int. Film Festival 13.11.09
Sao Paulo 09 - 33. Int. Film Festival, 23.11.09
Belgrade 10 - Int. Film Festival 19.02.10
