Revolution Film Festival - The Universe In Us
A strange biological malformation is detected inside the body of young dancer Li – a second, fully developed heart has grown in her chest. Doctors are mystified. Their search for possible causes remains inconclusive. While specialists encroach upon her body trying to examine the smallest molecule, Li refuses to see her condition as a "defect".
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Lisa Krane
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
I made it out of curiosity. I make films because it allows me to combine several art forms into one piece of experience. Literature, drama, photography, dance, music, philosophy, etc. − this film is a montage of all those.
Also, there was one topic I was obsessed with: it was the tension created by two opposing views of the human body. One was the technological approach of measuring and scanning the body using scientific machinery – the other was experiencing your body in a subjective, sensual, and aesthetic way. The human body can be so alien, so frightening and full of mystery, especially when you look at it from an unusual perspective.
The movie was also based on a personal experience. Imagine you are showing symptoms that physicians cannot fully explain but nevertheless interpret as ‘ill’ or ‘irregular’. They prescribe drastic treatments. The experience of giving away your right to choose and having to rely on the doctors’ judgement, even though you know that they have not fully understood the scope of your problem − this experience can be very frustrating. In order to get that feeling across I invented a surreal case: what if someone had two hearts, which, against all rules of medicine, have worked perfectly for over 27 years.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
I think you should watch it, because it is a unique aesthetic experience and also a powerful story.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
For me personal themes turn into universal themes when I try to understand their patterns and causes. I study the microcosm and try to find patterns in the macrocosm. This is how I strive to find answers. However, you usually find more questions than answers.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development and production?
Let’s say the project kept growing and shaped itself during the development. The images got stronger and sharper every time we added a new element.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The audience I met at festivals was very touched and also quite curious. They had a lot of questions about how I came up with the idea of two hearts in one chest, and about my concept of mixing action with dance and medical or technical images. Many told me that they found the use of those distinct elements together in one short film quite fascinating. Also, a lot of people felt the need to talk about the topic itself and started to share their own stories with me. This is probably the most interesting thing for a filmmaker - to find out what impact your film has on people, how others perceive the story, and how much all this is related to their own lives and thoughts. That is always the moment when I learn most about film-making.
This film is not so much about a twisted plot or a complex story, it is rather about an issue that touches us, and an aesthetic, audiovisual - you might want to call it a 'poetic' and abstract - approach to a conflict that we face - in one way or the other - every day in our lives. This is what I understood as I talked to the audience at festivals, or from what I heard from juries and the press.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
I was extremely surprised by how much people were actually touched by the film despite its unconventional structure. It always starts with a raw and crazy vision in your head - a vision that, once it is born, develops its own dynamics. Whenever I heard from a jury or from the press, it always astounded me how precisely they interpreted the issues I had been experimenting with. It sometimes feels as if your are caught redhanded.
On the other hand, you hardly get negative feedback at festivals. The people who come to talk to you are the ones who liked the film. The ones who don't like the film, probably don't mention that fact too loudly at festivals. I wish they would – otherwise: how will you ever know! Sometimes there was a discussion at the Q&A about the medical topic as such, or if the end of the film should have been different.
We were confronted with a lot of rejection before the film was even shot, and could not raise any kind of funding. It was quite difficult to explain why the dancing scenes were needed although they did not have any specific narrative impact that pushed the story. Or why we needed microscopic or computer generated morphing pictures from inside the body even though they are not part of a certain scene. Things like that are hard to get across as long as the story is just written on a sheet of paper. They just sound too weird. But the film would have lost its soul without them. So I decided to go without the money. Which was a hard thing to do, but it worked thanks to a great team a lot of fun improvising.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
It would be great to get in touch with other international filmmakers – for many reasons. Times are changing, today’s audiences use different channels to watch films, technology allows for more flexible ways of shooting. At the end, however, it is all about a great or moving story, grown out of an honest interest and an all-out vision of the filmmaker behind it. There are many fresh talents in Germany, but the film financing system here depends on TV co-funding. The mills of bureaucracy grind very slowly, the system is rather conservative, seldom audacious. It seems as if there is not much room for new experiences.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
The film has already been running at festivals for two years ( 2015/01 to 2017/01). But, if distributors or journalists are interested in it, I will be more than happy to provide all the necessary information.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I would like my film to be seen as a personal experiment. Film is – even more than a novel – an aesthetic experience.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Who defines what is right or wrong? True or untrue? Healthy or ill?
Would you like to add anything else?
I loved working on the music in this film. Creating it was experimenting with the medium and with the artist. Analogue music - a cello - was recorded in a church (because of the special sound). The cello player had never seen the film before, nor did he know what it was about. He just improvised on the basis of written texts that described the emotions I was looking for.
I wanted to avoid composing an audio 'score' for the film that just repeats the individual scenes, or tells the audience what to feel at a particular moment.
After collecting a lot of cello-improvisations on 'pure, independent feelings', we started to combine them with the film and then watched what would happen. In the next step we started to step by step contaminate the analogue cello-music with electronic influences until it got engulfed by the electronics at the same time as technology took over in the 'dark-laser-dance-world'. The process was rather exciting.
What are the key creatives developing or working on now?
We are working on a feature film. This time, however, will be without contemporary dance, yet it also plays in a music environment – and a bit of dance may still be included ...
Interview: April 2017
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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
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THE UNIVERSE IN US
A strange biological malformation is detected inside the body of young dancer Li – a second, fully developed heart has grown in her chest. Doctors are mystified. Their search for possible causes remains inconclusive. While specialists encroach upon her body trying to examine the smallest molecule, Li refuses to see her condition as a "defect".
Length: 28min
Director: Lisa Krane
Producer: Lisa Krane
Writer: Lisa Krane
DOP: Claire Jahn
Editor: Moritz Poth
Music: David Schütte & Tom Vermaaten
About the writer, director and producer:
Lisa Krane was born in Atlanta, USA, in 1986. Her family relocated to Germany when she was six. After studying one year at the University for the Creative Arts (UCCA) in Canterbury, UK, she attended the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. During her studies she also spent a semester at the National Film and Television Institute in Accra, Ghana. The Universe in Us is her first Short Film. She currenty lives and works in Hamburg.
Key cast: Lore Richter, Hannes Wegener
Looking for: Distributors, Buyers, Journalists
Made in association with: Academy of Media Arts Cologne
Where can I see it in the next month?
It has been running on festivals January 2015 -January 2017 unfortunately there are no screenings next month. Please write me a Email and I will be happy to send you a link.