Female Human Animal
Director: Josh Appignanesi
Writers: Josh Appignanesi and Chloe Aridjis
Producer: Jacqui Davies
Featuring: Chloe Aridjis
Set against the real-life contemporary art world, Female Human Animal is a psycho-thriller about a creative woman disenchanted with what modern life has to offer her. In 2015, Tate staged a retrospective exhibition of surrealist (and lover of Max Ernst) Leonora Carrington (1917-2011). Novelist Chloe Aridjis, due to her connections with the artist and with her native Mexico, was appointed co-curator of the exhibition. Set between the real-life curation of the Tate retrospective exhibition of the famous surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, and the curator’s dark fantasies, Female Human Animal sees writer and curator, Chloe Aridjis become increasingly haunted by the Carrington’s artworks as she descends into a dangerous world - part inspired by Carrington’s impenetrable mythology - part a product of her own desire. When an elusive, brooding man appears, Chloe begins to pursue him, but is she hunter, or hunted?
Nominated for Best Film at 2018 Beunos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema
Shot on antique video (in 1986 Panasonic produced one specific model of VHS camera, the AG-450, made for semi-professional users with a singular never repeated chip that produced a distinctive depth of field and colour), the film weaves dangerously between fact and fiction whilst always paying homage to Leonora Carrington.