CUM AS YOU ARE

Official Selections / Screenings:  Filmkunstfestival Zürich Winner Competiton (2023)// Instinct#14 _ Désir // Queerfilmfestival Leipzig // Queerpride Amsterdam // QUEERSF; Stockholm// APT 404, Brooklyn NYC // Official Selection Athens (2023) // Official Selection San Francisco // Official Selection Brussels PFF (2023) // Official Selection FdS Festival (2023) // Official Selection Post Warsaw, PL (2023)// Official Selection Humpfest, USA 2023 // Official Selection Pornfilmfestival Vienna, AT (2023) // Official Selection Excentrico Fest, Chile (2023) // Official Selection PFFB 2022


Anyone who suspects a zeitgeist-inherent statement on identity politics behind the imperative of the title thinks too small. You will be overrun by a declaration of force of what is (primeval) female, which is clinking with strength.Hanna Schaich's piece is, typical for her, rooted in the autobiographical. She radically raises her voice and gets others who are angry to join her own anger. Together they show how sex can be felt with all senses, naturally with body and mind. All scenes are carried by poetry that sounds like the threat of a new world order, accompanied by metallic-raw music. Yelled at as a spectators we are asked to explore thought rooms and possibilities of different futures - What if in supposedly individually experienced mental and physical wounds lies the collective energy for resistance? What if we squirt, dance, eat, whip away a society cramped in shame and norms? Or even abolish it? What if the anger of all fighters, who live in existing and past patriarchal structures, who had to endure them, who suffered from them or have come to death by them, what if that anger became an overwhelming, transforming energy turning us into freed, unadjusted and loud people, ready for a positive change? Then we fight for uncompromised being. For love freed from shame. For life as it could be. Alive origiastically. Fasten your seat belts on this horny ride through Wild-Wild-Witch-Clity-City. And: CUM AS YOU ARE. 

 

Artist Statement: The piece started after having flashbacks that I couldn’t control no more I experienced all my rape and violent experiences again and it felt like my brain can’t stop them no more. But I could write my way out and so the Poem started. To gain control back I took Martial Arts classes and was researching a lot about female ejaculation to talk about stigma and how to gain lust back. One thing lead to another and I understood I am not alone in it when reaching out to collaborators. The poem I wrote talks about community, cause I believe we need to unite to stand up against Utopian world and so I decided it needs to be a gang and the whole film should only include FLINTA* (stands for women, lesbians, intersexual, non-binary, trans and agender people - i.e. for all those who are patriarchally discriminated because of their gender identity) as cast and crew. Only together we are strong becausethe potential to stand up against violence, stigma and hate lies in finding common ground.


CREDITS

 

WRITER, DIRECTOR, DOP, EDITOR, PRODUCER: Hanna Schaich 

CO-DIRECTOR, CASTING DIRECTOR (BERLIN): Lo-Fi Cherry

CAST (BARCELONA) Kali Sudhra  Hanna Schaich 

POEM SPOKEN BY Kali Sudhra  

CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE (BERLIN) Sadie Lune, Priscilia Van B, Lou, Lexi Dark, Lissy Yum, Aquarius Ferox Blue 

DOP (BERLIN) COLOR GRADING: Lena Lopez

SET MANAGER (BERLIN): Birgit Severin

GAFFER (BERLIN): Sarah Süßmilch

LOCATION SOUND RECORDIST (BERLIN): Adrienne Teicher

CREW (BARCELONA)

GAFFER AND SET ASSISTANT: Sarah Rinderer

2ND CAMERA:  Shiri Faingold

SOUND DESIGN AND ORIGINAL SCORE: HYENAZ SONG CREDIT “Digital Age (HYENAZ remix)”Mad Kate | the Tide Provided by Kathryn Fischer & Jacopo Bertacco

Special thanks to Manuel Klein, Núria Nia, Terry Berkowitz, Jo Pollux, Ben Ross Davis

SHOOTING LOCATIONS Sala Ricson, hangar, Barcelona UNTERTAGE Berlin

 

Funded in parts by BBK Neustart Kultur, Amt der Vorarlberger Landesregierung