Wie ich mich verlor
How I Lost Myself
Marie Zahir (DoP)
P has lost confidence in language. She expresses her insecurity about language with her girlfriend; people speaking in different languages all mixed up together visit her; in a liquor store she talks in imaginary gestures, and back home she dances. All attempts fail, and rather than restoring her confidence, they create the general problem of communication – the »not understanding each other«. Over the course of seven chapters, following a loose plot, P lives out her thought experiment.
Jury Statement:
A short film about loss of language, the preoccupation with this loss and the possibility of finding a solution. The cinematography successfully combines precisely composed images, well-controlled lighting and strong colour dramaturgy thanks to the costume and design work. Despite the film’s conceptual reduction, the audience is still emotionally involved in »P«’s world. Marie Zahir’s work succeeds in making the invisible visible. The film consists of several acts, whereby each act offers a self-contained concept of resolution that is not repeated and results in a plausible whole. The 50 m long tracking shot is another example of the worthwhile effort.
Marie Zahir (DoP)
Marie Zahir was born in Vienna and from 2003 to 2010 studied at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen, Germany. During and after this period of study, she worked for various performance groups on the fringe theatre scene as a lighting designer. From 2010 to 2012, she was employed full-time at Cinegrell, a Swiss camera rental company. Alongside that, she also worked as a clapper loader and focus puller. In order to focus more extensively on the art of cinematography, Marie Zahir did a post-graduate degree in the subject at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne from 2013 to 2017. During these studies, Marie Zahir, as cinematographer, shot 19 short films across various genres. She works in Germany and Austria.
Filme von Marie Zahir (Cinematpgraphy, Selection)
The Fear of Dying in Transit 2018 | Embellishments 2017 | Die Frau von heute 2016 Flaschendrehen 2015 | Phoenix 2015 | Adagio 2015 | Reise zum Mond 2014 | Seren 2014 | The Prisoner and the Tree 2014