Director
Special Program FIVE WOMEN: Narcisa Hirsch
“Experimental film” is, above all, a paradox that can cover very diverse experiences, even opposing ones, ranging from structural, formalist and materialist film to spontaneous, documentary, informalist performances. Since the late 60’s, Narcisa Hirsch has been building a body of work that has an aesthetic, conceptual and cinematic range that few filmmakers have been able to achieve. Having learnt the art lessons of the 60’s, having taken part in happenings, political art, pop, minimalism and other ruptures of that decade, Hirsch positioned herself as a ‘filmmaker of crossroads’ who paved the way for a generation and, at the same time, was alone in the field of art of her time.
A pioneer in cinematic happenings and structural films but also in taking a political stance on gender, her films – with the poetic impulse that marks her gaze – blazed a trail that few people could follow. Always in non-professional formats, Super-8 and 16mm, which translate into a handmade intimacy that in many of her films produces the effect of a microscopic closeness, Hirsch’s poetic dimension lies in a concentration on framing that achieves a compositive, rhythmic and contemplative obsession.
(Diego Trerotola)