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30 October 2016: Invisible Adversaries

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Invisible Adversaries
VALIE EXPORT, Peter Weibel
1976 | 108 min | Colour | 16mm

“Anna, a photographer and video reporter in Vienna, hears a radio report about an invasion of invisible aliens – the Hyksos – who intend to take over the Earth and its inhabitants. ‘But the aspects of VALIE EXPORT’s film that are of interest to us come not only from the theme of a schizophrenic young woman and her relationship with a paternalistic man, but also from the esthetic she developed simultaneously. The film does not submit esthetically to a clean division between a normal, objective surroundings and abnormal, schizophrenic distortion and projection. It neither filmically separates the projections and dreams from their environment in quasi-objectivity, nor does it lose itself to a depiction of the woman’s subjective point of view by pretending to assume it for the purpose of telling the story. On the contrary, the film takes its esthetic from the very fact that it includes the various levels.’” – Gertrud Koch

Part of our season on VALIE EXPORT