Sasquatch Sunset

Den Sasquatch, hierzulande eher als Bigfoot bekannt, gibt es doch! Zumindest in SASQUATCH SUNSET der Regie-Brüder Zellner, der im Stil einer Tier-Doku einer Vierer-Sippe dieser mythischen Affenkreaturen ein Jahr lang durch die nordkalifornischen Wälder folgt. Geredet wird nicht, stattdessen geknurrt und gefaucht, während die Sasquatchs animalisch, aber irgendwie doch auch sehr menschlich durch die Natur und die Jahreszeiten streifen, Sex haben, Nachwuchs bekommen und mit tödlichen Gefahren konfrontiert werden. Eine herrlich absurde Filmseltsamkeit, so slapstickkomisch wie tragisch-anrührend – und mit versteckter Schauspiel-Prominenz in den Ganzkörperanzügen. (Sascha Rettig)

In 1967, two cowboys shot some footage near Willow Creek in Northern California, now known as the PATTERSON–GIMLIN FILM, that seems to show a Sasquatch. The 352nd frame of the film has since become the most representative image of this creature in popular culture. While the film’s veracity has been frequently been called into question, one thing is for sure: it is a she, not a he, visible in the frame; her name is Patty. In 2010, the Zellner brothers released a short film called SASQUATCH BIRTH JOURNAL 2, which shows a bigfoot giving birth by a crystalline river. SASQUATCH SUNSET seems to represent the missing link between these two films, imagining life for a female bigfoot in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. Together with her companions, three male Sasquatches to whom she is related in various ways, we see the rituals the quartet conduct in the forest, her everyday existence and the changes that pregnancy induces in her body. As we trace the transformation of landscape across the seasons we witness the group’s actions and reactions (not human, yet not fully other) in this surreal comedy that manages to be fully expressive even without spoken dialogue. (Lucía Salas)

David Zellner: PLASTIC UTOPIA (1997), FRONTIER (2001), GOLIATH (2008), KID-THING (2012), KUMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER (2014), DAMSEL (2018, KO-REGIE) 

Nathan Zellner: LOTSAM/JETSAM (2005, K), BLACK SOMETHING (2016, K), DAMSEL (2018, KO-REGIE)