monument that also fights againstpatriarchy.The camera in hand also helped us toemphasize the internal energy full of angerthat has been contained for so long.It was really important to us, start this dancefilm with the spaces that have beenscratched in Mexico City, so we can showother people, the real context, that the Cityand the women are raising the voice. It wasmade with another format, actually it wasmade with a cellphone, a device that canrecord at all times and all places, just as ithappens in the marches.We really appreciate the visual metaphorof caring for female bodies as much asmonuments. Can you walk us throughthe process of developing this concept?Stephanie: From my point of view, thiscame as a question and then developedinto a metaphor: What would happen if thefemale-bodied monuments in CDMX couldspeak and respond to their so-called“defenders” from vandalism? Then, I
WomenCinemakersthought of the tradition of “human statues” inthe Historic Center of CDMX: artists who poseas monuments. Melissa and I hadcollaborated before, and she is such atalented interdisciplinary artist and dancer, soI knew that we could turn Melissa into amonument that comes to life. We wereinspired by the Ángel de la Independencia,the most emblematic symbol of CDMX, andalso the biggest site of activist graffiti. She isa woman, after all. We found it ironic how sheis “defended” against the feminists when shewould defend them. So we imagined how shewould break out of her shell with movement.Your film stands out for its, especially during thepandemic. Can you detail how youmanaged to work across borders, withteam members in different parts of theglobe? How did this remote collaborationinfluence the final product? Were thereany unexpected benefits to thisunconventional production method?interview
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WomenCinemakersMelissa: We had many online meetings withall the team. Stephanie and Anais Azul (thecomposer) were in the USA, while Aitana,Max (prop creator and staff) and I were inMexico. Also Stephanie and I had onlinerehearsals to make the choreography, shedirected me and we created that materialtogether. I think this remote workingmethod, that was the only method we couldcollaborate during those days because of thepandemic, made all the preproductionprocess longer than we wanted, but made uswork deeper in the concepts we wanted toexpress and made clear for the audience.Aitana: Specifically in music, Anais sent mewhat she was composing, so I can hear it,check if I was able to achieve it and also so Ican tell her my opinion, so we worked on itfrom a distance.The purple color of the Mexican Women'sMovement plays a prominent role. Howdid you incorporate this symbolism intoyour cinematography?interview
WomenCinemakersStephanie: It was clear: Conservatives see thepurple graffiti as an imposition; we see thepurple as what the statues would want ontheir bodies as expressions of their voicesjoining in the protest. This is why purple paintcomes out of Melissa’s mouth, why she paintspurple on Aitana’s eyelids and lips, whicheffectively brings her to life and quite literallygives her a voice. These monuments CHOOSEto represent themselves with the color of thefeminist movement. It is an act of solidarity.The animated purple rain at the end showsthe ripple effect- This movement isunstoppable and contagious.The Colegio de las Vizcaínas is a strikinglocation for your film. What factorsinfluenced your decision to shoot at thishistoric site in Mexico City's center? Howdoes the architecture and history of thisinstitution intersect with the themes ofyour film, particularly in relation towomen's roles in Mexican society overtime?interview
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WomenCinemakersMelissa: We definitely wanted to film in MexicoHistoric Center since it is the core of thecountry and also is an important site, not onlyto the 8M protests, but also to every importantsocial movement, it is a key reunion point werealmost every manifestation march culminates,in front of Palacio Nacional, were theprotestants demand to the government theirpetitions. We would have loved to film in apublic space, but it was technically difficultbecause of the body painting, the shootinghours and all the permissions and movement apublic space have, so we look for a closedlocation that had an open space and streetalike vibe were this monuments could be partof, and Colegio de las Vizcaínas was the perfectspot.The film's soundscape is as compelling as itsvisuals, with complex and sometimesjarring, almost elements. Howdid you approach the audio design for? Can you walk us throughyour collaboration with the sound team,
WomenCinemakersdetailing how you developed the auditoryelements to reinforce the film's themes?Stephanie: We collaborated with Anaís Azulwho is an amazing musician. We bouncedideas back and forth with them, sending themexamples of the aesthetics we were lookingfor, but also being open to their proposals.We loved the idea that Aitana should actuallysing, while Anaís composed the lyrics out ofmy poem. The sounds really depicted disgust,horror, freedom, and solidarity.The issue ofis central to your film. What doyou hope viewers, especially those outsideMexico, will take away from this aspect?Stephanie: This film is quite specific to theMexican context and I understand thatforeigners might not fully understand it. Inthe USA, we don’t wear purple, and thedebate over monuments is a different one,focused more around colonizers andconfederates. There is not much focus on thefemicides in Mexico. I hope that non-LatinAmerican viewers are able to understandthe context and not only enjoy the visualnarrative. That said, there is a sense thatthese statues are objects that experience a
kind of unsolicited violence (the gum), andthat they rebel against that and find solidarityin each other. This film has been shown insome international festivals, and it is incrediblyimportant to show the world that femicide inMexico is a cause that matters, particularlybecause it is one that is so invisibilized. UScitizens who move to Mexico and romanticizeit often invisibilize everything in Mexicobecause they are only interested in benefiting
in a neocolonial way off of the fruits ofMexico. EVERYONE must understand thatall women’s lives, particularly Mexicanwomen, working class Mexican women,trans Mexican women, and indigenousMexican womens’ lives matter.Thanks a lot for your time and forsharing your thoughts. Finally, would
WomenCinemakersyou like to tell us readers somethingabout your future projects? How do yousee your work evolving?Melissa: Unfortunately we haven't been able to collaborate again since this filmyet. And we all have move on with someother personal and different projects.Last year I made another dance filmcommemorating the Centennial of theSurrealist Manifesto, but it is still in postproduction. But I definitely want tocollaborate again with this beautifulteam. It’s amazing finding people tocollaborate in this horizontalrelationship with no need of hierarchywhere every one of us is fully committedto the project and we all have theintention to make what it is for me atrue collaboration.Stephanie: I love Melissa. We see eye toeye aesthetically, politically, and we havea similar work ethic. I miss Mexico andwould love to work with Melissa and thiswonderful group again. I know it willhappen. It would be a dream to worktogether both in SF and CDMX, though Iknow the current situation is quitedifficult.
Hello Maja and welcome tomakers. For this special thisspecial edition we have selectedAn interview by Francis L. Quettierand Dora S. [email protected], a stimulating work that canbe viewed at.The film’s focus on the mundane and therepetitive is deeply unsettling yetmesmerising. We are particularly struck byMaja Skjøth HegelundWomenCinemakers meetsLives and works in Portland, OR, USAI create video, performance, sound, and installation works that fantasize about metaphysical entities lingering onthe life-death spectrum, lurking in digital spheres. By envisioning an overlap between “dead” and “living”beings, I elasticize how they coexist, potentially infiltrate, and interact within these spaces. My practice dissolvesthe boundaries between human identity, digital culture, and mass media, raising questions about the nature ofour existence: are we designed props within a digital landscape, or are we alive in a mortal sense? I am drawn tothe push-pull of hyper-emotionality and fatigue in our interactions with digital content—how it feels bothparticipatory and mandatory, endlessly alluring yet deeply unsatisfying.My work has been screened worldwide, including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Norway,Poland, Serbia, South Korea, the UK, and the US. My background includes a BA and MA in Visual Culturefrom the Royal Danish Academy and an MFA in Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
WomenCinemakersthe way you have crafted Elantra’s character,whose delicate balance between naivedetachment and mechanical behaviour feelslike a poignant commentary on the humanexperience in the digital age. Could you talkus through the process of creating such alayered character? How did you decide on thesubtle yet powerful mannerisms that defineElantra’s interactions, and do you see her asembodying a particular generational oruniversal response to life in the digital era?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: I think there is aprevailing collective yawn that accompaniesbeing online. Consequently, there is a want tominimize screen time and be offline butsomehow that feels like restricting what’s readilyavailable and instead indulging in asceticism.From certain angles Elantra looks like an ascetichedonist; she has little room to maneuver butwhat room she has presents itself as indulgentand maybe even fun: Cheetos, pleather, andvideo games are designed to be fun, but theirexuberance becomes obnoxious and sad.From her beginning Elantra did not feel planned.She seemed less a product of meticulous designand more a serendipitous assembly. An erraticentity tucked beneath a blonde acrylic wig, she isnot someone born but someone prepared—abeing destined not to die but simply to bepowered down. Neither pulse nor breath norblood animates her. Elantra happened along theway which seems to add to her uncertain natureand somewhat poorly rehearsed mannerisms.Elantra contains a lot that is not her. She is madeof an overload of fragmented input, assembledto imitate human connection, and her lack ofawareness disables her from consideringalternatives. More literally and retrospectively,she manifests a homogenized exterior existencemitigated by cultural trends and the lack ofdesire to question them.The ambiguous nature of your protagonist -hovering between human and prop, alive andinanimate - brings to mind the uncanny valley
and raises questions about authenticity in anincreasingly artificial world. What were youraesthetic choices in developing this particularcharacterisation?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: When I worked on thepiece I didn’t use AI and had little experiencewith it, but it was on my mind; not as a tool butas a wonderment with the confluence of depthand surface. My lack of knowledge of AI mademe question its rigidity: how flexible is a humanbeing and how unalterable is an AI-generatedbeing? Being alive and not, are perceived asopposites and not as locations on a spectrum.What would an in-between being look and actlike? Elantra is stuck there, maybe imitating bothhumanity and AI because she can’t truly identifyas either. Because she is not a threatening
machine per se, the extent to which heranthropomorphism can be pushed is bouncyand sometimes I feel as if her fragility eclipseshumanity.I often return to my fascination with Westernfemale self-design because it feelsstandardized to the point of hive mindrobophilia but simultaneously is such a selfindulgent act. Somewhere in me, I understandthe appeal of hair extensions, false eyelashes,and acrylic nails; Elantra gets to play with theseideals, but without the patience to do it right.She adopts the beauty rituals with fleetinginterest and superficial engagement and hopesthat she can pass as a standard attractivehuman woman by clumsily playing the role ofone. Aesthetically, my “clay” is myself since I
WomenCinemakersplay the role of Elantra. I don’t visually correspondwith the idea of an exemplary woman, as per AIstandards, so I leap into a state of purposefulpathetism, smearing makeup on my face, wearingexcessively body-hugging spandex, and entering astage that’s all mine to love, skew, or destroy.Elantra's naive and mechanical interactions evokea fascinating duality, one that seems to balancebetween sympathy and unease. How do you hopeaudiences interpret Elantra’s apparent inability toconnect in a way we might call “authentic,” anddo you see her as an entirely tragic figure, or isthere a kind of hope in her naivety?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: I think there is some hope inElantra. I find her vapid nature to be not just tragicbut also a form of naive openness to whatever willcome. She is not exactly a classic clean slate, but sheis stripped of any personal recollection, almost likeshe has no past but is only preoccupied with the nowand the near future. I would hope that she can makea bond with the audience in a way that’s not quitehuman and not quite robot; an airy bond that mayinterview
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WomenCinemakersinclude rays of joy, hopelessness, pity, tenderness, andcare, to mention a few.We're rather taken by your decision to place Elantrain what appears to be - thisstark, enclosed realm that seems to exist outside oftime and conventional space. Could you elaborateon how this setting serves as a metaphor forcontemporary isolation, particularly in relation tothe way modern society creates these peculiar?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: I think there is a tendency tounderstand aloneness and shyness as inherentlynegative. Togetherness and socializing are linked tosmooth sailing, efficiency, and a higher quality of life.Although human interactions are magical, I thinkpockets of solitude are a comfort and a need, that forsome is more important than social interactions; Ibelieve that is partly why the pockets manifest. Humansenses constantly work on overdrive and expectationsnever feel fully met. In a way, my work happens in asolitary pocket. I love working alone, rarely needing toexplain my process, listening to the same song 100interview
WomenCinemakerstimes, and taking as many hours as I want to domy makeup. For me, aloneness can be liberating.Sometimes, I think of elevators as otherworldly,maybe because they often appear in my dreamsbut also because they’re pockets of solitude inthe most literal way. I imagine an elevator with afloor above the ones you see on the pushbuttons. That is not necessarily a metaphor fordying/going to heaven but rather an idea of aplane that is connected tangentially to the worldwe know. I imagine it as a waiting room inside aballoon loosely attached to a highrise, butnobody knows what they’re waiting for. The air isdifferent there, and the scale is obscured. This isthe isolation I imagine Elantra in, but isolation is
WomenCinemakersdifferent when you’re not aware that it’shappening. That’s how the obscureness of herrehearsing humanity comes in - she rehearses,she awaits, she expects - but what?portrays intimacyas something mechanical and detached -almost like. Would yousay this reflects your observations of howtechnology has altered human connection,and perhaps more specifically, how socialmedia has created these peculiar templatesfor emotional expression?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: In a sense, technology
WomenCinemakerscreates a standardized way of everything. This isemphasized when AI attempts to construct acollective idea of perfection. I have recently beenworking with simple AI software and initially found itmuch easier to compose unexpected, uncannyimages. As the software development “progressed”the expected ideals became harder to escape. That’sdisappointing because it removes the nuancedconversation with technology and pushes users toadhere to predictability. I see the construction of thisideal as a reciprocal entanglement between socialmedia and AI that intends to make an agreement onperfection. How do you cry or laugh in an ideal way,and how can that be formulized?I imagine AI and SoMe as dance partnerslethargically mirroring each other, more or lesssuccessfully. Eventually, that dance ends upsuggesting a dominant sublimity that’s hard toresist. In my work, I fantasize about what and how AImakes its selections and how it often assimilates alarge bulk of trending SoMe content. The true originof AI choices is still a mystery to me (I’m not sure Iwant to know), but I think it’s safe to say that there isinterview
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WomenCinemakersbias. For example, is probably morepopular than .TikTok thrives on users openly copying trendingcontent, which feels both social and inclusive, butalso like a lack of individual thought process. Fromthe most pessimistic angle, that trend reducessocializing to stripping all individuality and turningyourself into a formula. I think the homogeny wewitness and participate in on SoMe is such an oddcross between an automatic response (cravinghomogeny and belonging) and an intenselyorchestrated performance of living (wanting tostand out and be an individual). So, humanprimality and complexity are fertilized side by sideor maybe as conjoined twins. If one dies, the otherdies.The game \" \" functions as a ratherfascinating mise en abyme within your narrativestructure -. Could you delve into how thisrecursive imprisonment serves to illuminateinterview
your broader thoughts on agency and freewill in an increasingly deterministic digitalage?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: “Bait” started as a crossbetween a game and an imaginary living materialin a petri dish. I thought that this could be, forexample, a human blood sample. In the mostliteral way, I made a mix of human material anda screen-based game. The absurdity of digitallyplaying with a blood sample feels clinical, yetbarbarian and maybe even worse if the sampleyou’re playing with is your own. I imagined howElantra might be the sample, whilst playing withher sample, which turns into a labyrinthinenightmare. On a broader scale there is aWomenCinemakers
participatory, but potentially oblivious,engagement with the larger mechanisms thatmaneuver one’s own being.On a small scale, the consequence of theseencapsulation loops could lead toOmphaloskepsis: gazing at one’s own navel. At ashared scale, there is an endless Babushka effect,but with no particular order.The theme of the relationship betweenemotional life and the digital technospherealso emerges in . In thisvideo, the gap between the incorporealdimension and the need for tactileconfrontation becomes even moreremarkable, evident from the very firstmoments, where a hand caresses an old-styleWomenCinemakers
screen. Could you elaborate on how yourexploration of has evolvedbetween these two pieces?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: The distinction betweenhuman and AI is obscured in both works, butElantra seems further from physical touch becauseshe is made of an unknown material. The humanflesh component is important in Flirt Communitywhereas Elantra’s material is nowhere near that. Ifyou were to pass by her, you would knowsomething was wrong, like something that shouldbe alive but has been chilled to a lifeless state. Flirtcommunity was put together in a couple of daysbut contained an appetizing tension that lasted foryears; When chat workers in the adult industrymaterialize on the screen their function seemsalmost algorithmic, human and AI materializewithin each other. Their learned seductive formulabecomes a commingling between human realnessand mechanized compliance. The superiority ofhuman emotion transgresses from formalizedWomenCinemakers interview
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WomenCinemakersspectacle to enigma. My inability to fullycomprehend this enigma put me in a waitingroom where I stayed while Elantra was made.We're particularly impressed with yourtreatment of screens as mediators of affect -these digital interfaces that seem to bothenable and obstruct genuine emotionalconnection. Could you discuss how this relatesto our current digital paradigm, and perhapsshare your thoughts on how screens havebecome both windows and barriers in modernlife?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: Any angle I approach thisfrom makes me feel and sound very old and antitechnology although I consider myself an elasticpacifist on the topic. I think the question ofgenuine emotional connection is interestingbecause I can’t define genuine emotionalconnection but maybe I can still recognize it, orwhat I believe it to be. Sometimes I imagine whatit’s like to be a teenager today but then I see oneon their phone and I feel like we’re differentinterview
beings, and my imagination doesn’t stretch tothat place. My way of perceiving the currentdigital era, comes from someone too old tosense the emotional bond that kids form withtheir devices. In terms of screens enablingconnection there seems to be a cleargenerational bias. I believe that many tweens,teens, and older kids make connections onlinethat are as meaningful or more, as the ones theymake off screen. I hesitate to use the expressionIRL because screens are realities as much as ourbodies are. Similarly, feelings and connectionsare not truer when they’re formed without adevice. When we exceedingly melt with ourscreens, the definition of human authenticity andconnection will be altered. I imagine that bodylanguage will have less impact on ourinterpretation of each other, and physical touchmay be extended in both meaning andcapability. The \"Long Lost Touch\" is an existingdevice that is meant for kissing without being inthe same physical space. You simply install theLong Lost Touch App and pair your kissingdevice with the person you want to kiss. ThroughWomenCinemakers
motion sensors, the silicon lips move and addpressure to mimic a human kiss.What role do you see experimental art films likeyours playing in contemporary cinema? Do youfeel they offer audiences a kind of reflection orengagement that traditional storytelling cannot,and what do you hope viewers take away fromthis experience?Maja Skjøth Hegelund: The unruliness inherent invideo art and experimental cinema offers aliberating departure from the confines of, say, aclassic narrative arc. To create independently,unbound by rigid rules, feels paradoxically bothintimate and detached—a process where one’sdeepest longings are scattered into the world,unfiltered and bare. This raw, chaotic intimacy, oncemade public, becomes an act of courage, sparkinghonest expression.The phrase feeling it or not feeling it—ubiquitousin popular culture—resonates precisely because itencapsulates an essential truth. When somethingWomenCinemakers
touches that elusive spot in your upper stomach(the diaphragm, perhaps?), it stirs a feeling. Evenbetter if that feeling is not immediatelydeterminable yet undeniably there. Sharing thisephemeral vibe or ray of something yet to be (ornever to be) defined creates a pliant bridgebetween individual and shared emotions. Itmakes me hopeful that these feelings exist andthat we humans can share without words, maybewithout knowing that we are sharing, just byaccessing that inarticulate layer of feeling andenabling it to levitate inside.My hope is that viewers feel something—notnecessarily something they can name—butsomething visceral, something that gently ticklesthe diaphragm and lingers in the undefinable.Thanks a lot for your time and for sharingyour thoughts, Maja. Finally, would you liketo tell us readers something about yourfuture projects? How do you see your workevolving?WomenCinemakers