Experimental and hybrid films inspired by Catalina/Antonio de Erauso*.
The project weaves together forms and materials of cinema, performance and installation to make exhilarating worlds. In this plural project we use de Erauso as our springboard to explode gender and beyond, in time/space trans-dimensions. Catalinas Project is future-making storytelling: anarchic, poetic and playful
CATALINAS PROJECT
Catalina meets the pope (2022, 18’ )
Eccentric characters interfere with Catalina on their way to meet pope Urban VIII, a peculiar one himself, obsessed with smoking restrictions. Catalina maintains their cool and with a tiny lie obtains what they came for.
Through timeless settings and cross-dressing, transposed characters, the accent of this first-produced chapter of the project falls sharply on the absurdity and perversion of binary gender.
Boden Film Fest (SW), Sandgrounder Int Film Fest (UK), Her Vision Int Film Fest (USA), Triloka Int Film Awards (IN), Grand Pixel Int Film Fest (IN), Sydney World Fest, Global Bengaluru Film Fest, Inspirational Film Fest (CH), Canal De Panama Int Film Fest
Antonio is a bully and a cheat. They pick a fight too many and almost get killed. Rescued by odd water creatures (PESCiE) a semi-blind doctor unrobes them only to reveal that Antonio has tits...
In surreal and oneiric ways, this part of the project addresses, even more than gender, Catalina’s addiction to violence with the underscore of the brutality of colonialism.
Developed with the support of Residence Studio Off-Courts, Trouville FR.
She who lives by the sword (2024, 13’)
If these walls could talk (2024, in post)
The reinvented times of young novice Catalina locked away in convent and finding aliveness in a luminous escape.
In ever-more playful rhythms and dada looks, this short points its camera to the waste of life in captivity and Catalina’s capacity for freedom.
Developed and produced with the support of Hyper-senseless Residency Arthur Cravan Foundation, Milan.
*Catalina de Erauso
(San Sebastian 1592ca-Mexico1650),
changed gender multiple times.
They were a nun, a coloniser, a soldier,
a voyager, a cheat, a killer, a thief, a celebrity...
a plurality
Watch the interview to elena pachner sarno and Aidi Tamburrino
by Her Vision Festival (NY)
CATALINAS IN ME
These portraits take form from the ongoing research of plural embodied Catalinas in the world. It is unclear if they temporarily inhabit my body or if I occasionally operate an unsubtle transformation.
PLAY INSTALLATIONS
Catalina meets the pope has been the starting point of site-specific, non-competitive Treasure Hunts. Groups of participants were given clues related to the film and its objects, while characters in flesh and blood presented them with riddles and tasks. All participants were rewarded with the cinematic projection of the film they had just played with.
