God is a Woman
Andres Peyrot / France, Switzerland & Panama / 2023 / 86 min
The Search for a lost film from the 70s takes a young man from one of South America's largest indigenous communities on an existential journey in a post-colonial film about the right to one's own image.
In the 1970s, Oscar-winning French documentary filmmaker Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau moved with his family to Panama to make a film about the Kuna community, one of South America’s largest indigenous peoples. He promised them that they would see it, but for various reasons, production stalled and the film (with the working title ‘God is a Woman’) was never completed. But what happened to the unfinished film reels? That’s what young Arysteides Turpana, on the mandate of the Kuna elders, sets out to find out. His journey takes him to France, but gaining access to the dusty film reels is not easy. Following in his footsteps is Swiss-Panamanian director Andrés Peyrot, who has created one of the year’s biggest festival successes since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. A film that manages to turn abstract questions about the right to own one’s own image and narrative into a relevant and existential necessity.