dir Maria Klonaris & Katerina Thomadaki | France | 1975-76
Pioneers of French feminist cinematic avant-garde, Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki began their rebellious and most innovative exploration of the female body and identity, going by the evocative name of Cinéma corporel (Cinema of the Body), in 1975 with the film-manifesto Double Labyrinthe.
The two artists film one another in a series of portraits aiming at the visualisation of the subconscious through mysterious rituals, calling upon Ancient Greek and Egyptian archetypes. This mesmeric and purely feminine representation, exclusively filtered by the female gaze, not only deeply destabilises the dominant female depiction in the film medium, but also goes on to subvert the relationship between “filmer” and filmed.
As a consequence, the viewer herself – or himself – is invited to a radically unusual kind of engagement with the images. Double Labyrinthe demands to let us, the audience, be carried and transformed by its hypnotic and ritualistic series of unconventional portraits.
This screening of Double Labyrinthe is co-curated by Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest and the National Film & Television School film student programme The Pursuit of Wholeness, exploring the influences of Ancient Greek mythology and archetypes on cinematic quests for sexual and gender identity.