Linda Christanell

Double 8 focuses on the encounter with Linda Christanell, artist of the feminist avant-garde of the 1970s [...] In the gesture of mutual filming, images are created in the eyes of the others. The gazes into the camera create a visual loop between the two women while at same time pointing at the beholder. These images constitute the two women as self-determined subjects saying: I see you seeing me - instead of being looked at as an object. (Christiana Perschon)

This is the theme of the film: The secret of objects in the huge space and time curve: the not-being-able-to-recognize, the not-being-able-to-grasp, the not-knowing. The curve is presented in the film as a miniature: 24 hours (morning, day, evening, night, morning) condensed into 40 minutes.

Every encounter with an image, every interaction searches for its own form. She is the other gaze is a collaboration with five female visual artists of an older generation who have been part of the Viennese art scene since the 1970s and engaged in the women's movement. In dialogue with the filmmaker Renate Bertlmann, Linda Christanell, Lore Heuermann, Karin Mack and Margot Pilz share their early works and artistic practices. They remember how their self-determination evolved between artistic ambitions, economic constraints, adaptation and resistance to the prevailing patriarchal social structures. In their role as feminist pioneers, the protagonists are a great influence on the contemporary art scene and the self-understanding of younger artists today. With their voices and narratives, they become collaborators passing on feminist thinking and artistic experiences.