Gli appunti di Anna Azzori / Uno specchio che Viaggia nel tempo Constanze Ruhm

When ANNA (1972–1975), Alberto Grifi’s and Massimo Sarchielli’s cinéma-vérité portrait of a stranded pregnant woman on Rome’s Piazza Navona, returned to screens eight years ago, the early, greasy video aesthetic amplified its sense of mystery: a work of art has become the only proof that this protagonist and real-life human being, who later disappeared, even existed. GLI APPUNTI DI ANNA AZZORI/UNO SPECCHIO CHE VIAGGIA NEL TEMPO, Constanze Ruhm’s re-reading and extension of this 1970s collaborative work of the 1970s, is carried by a related unease, which is given a strong feminist turn: Anna is no longer the limited subject of a sociopolitical exploration, but rather actively steps out of the frame and invents her own agenda. Ruhm’s film interweaves different approaches, one of which is called a “frequency change”: a casting process in several parts that provides Anna with a bunch of colorful contemporary alter egos and therefore turns her into a member of an utopian feminist collective. Another is directed against the persistence of Grifi’s and Sarchielli’s work itself, whereby Anna is given the opportunity to rewrite her story via small interventions, also understanding her decisions as a political stance against patriarchy. (Dominik Kamalzadeh)

Constanze Ruhm begegnet Anna in einem Archiv, in Alberto Grifis und Massimo Sarchiellis vierstündigem Dokumentarfilm ANNA aus den 1970er Jahren. Der Frage nachgehend, wer diese ominöse Protagonistin war, münden die Reflexionen in einer feministischen Reise durch Kulturgeschichte, Raum und Zeit. Ruhm trifft die junge Frau, der Grifi und Sarchielli einst zufällig auf der Piazza Navona in Rom begegneten, überall: in Computeranimationen, bei nächtlichen Dreharbeiten, während Demonstrationen und in der Literatur. Ausgezeichnet mit dem Diagonale-Preis Innovatives Kino 2020. (Sebastian Höglinger)