Dodging Raindrops – A Separate Reality is an episodic experimental film, in which documentary and staged scenes intertwine in a mythic-apocalyptic narrative. The film begins in Los Angeles und retraces the field trips into the Southwest assumed to have been taken by the controversial anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, a founder of the New Age movement. Taking up the anthropological concept of othering, the film casts its subjects as others inhabiting another side, another reality and another opposite. In doing so, Dodging Raindrops – A Separate Reality weaves a web of ostensible truths and untruths, of legends and utopias, of historic incidents and visions.

Protagonist

Eureka Break, Rafael Lopez García, Scott Thomas Lowe, Drawz Eric Romero and friends, S. from Fresno, Ferdinandus Ludovicus VanEeten

Crew & Production

Editor Antje Engelmann

Narrator and narrative adviser „Barrit“ Arthur Harriman

Sound Design and Mix Gábor Ripli

Color Grading Unai Rosende

Post production coordination Michel Balagué

Mastering and Postproduction Volte Film

Narrator recorded by Robert Willis

Whispering Matze Görig

Film Processing Spectra Film & Video, Los Angeles

Film Scan Korn Manufaktur, Berlin

Filmed during an artist in residence at Villa Aurora, Los Angeles

Funding and support

Produced with generous support from Ingvild Goetz, Sammlung Goetz

Markus Hannebauer, fluentum Collection

Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg

and in cooperation with Berlinische Galerie,

Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst

Flipping the Coin Films Cyrill Lachauer, 2017

Website

http://www.cyrilllachauer.net

Searching for the unique Axolotl, a endemic salamander that used to live in the former lake of Mexico, Atl Tlachinolli is an essayistic inquiry into survival and adaptation, the film casts its gaze on that which remains.

“In order to escape being sacrificed, the God Xólotl transforms himself into a salamander, fleeing from what he once was. His death was necessary in order to bring forth a new era.”

So relates the voice of a woman in the essay film Atl Tlachinolli (Scorched water), which tells of the search for the Axolotl, a salamander that lives in the lakes surrounding Mexico City. The Axolotl- an Aztec word for “water monster”- lives its entire life in the water, refusing to undergo metamorphosis and conform to terrestrial life. The animal was seen for the last time in its natural habitat in 2014. A fishermen who survives on the outskirts of the megalopolis tells of its disappearance. Cognizant of the mythological immortality that surrounds the strange creature, he expresses the desire to transform into one himself.

Taking up this mythology of transformation from god to animal as a metaphor for Mexico City itself, the director accompanies a corrupt policeman and gang member in the sprawling suburbs of the megalopolis. He examines the struggle for survival in what was the former lake of Mexico but is today the habitat of 23 million people. As an essayistic inquiry into survival and adaptation, the film casts its gaze on that which remains

You don’t have to be a zoologist to understand Alexander Hick’s fascination with an animal singularly adapted to the formation of myths. The axolotl, a caudate, refuses to metamorphose. It will not go ashore but prefers to remain in the water as a larva and still manages to breed and regrow limbs. Even its heart and brain regenerate! The only problem is that its habitat has vanished. An 8-million metropolis is now rising where there used to be water: Mexico City. Alexander Hick asks how humans treat the conquered paradise through insistent images full of cultural historical, religious and mythological references. In fragmented parallel episodes he sketches the inhabitants of this megacity and their struggle for survival. Violence and corruption have hollowed out everything: the family, the institutions, the state. The film does not give us any faith in their self-“regeneration”. On the contrary. So the axolotl, worshipped by the Aztecs, is the last witness of an oppressed and abused landscape and an age when humans were still capable of building advanced civilisations. An intelligent – in the noblest sense of the word – essay film, and the bold portrait of a city. (Cornelia Klauß)

Trailer

Crew & Production

Director and Director of Photography: Alexander Hick

Editing: Julian Sarmiento

Voice Over: Matthias Hirth and Ileana Villareal

Music: Juan Pablo Villa

Producer: Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, A.C. and University for Television and Films Munich

Executive Producer: Flipping the Coin Films

Infos

Duration: 75 min

Shooting format: Super 16mm

Endformat: DCP

Aspect Ratio: 1:1,85

Sound 5.1. Dolby Surround

Festival participation

2015, Visions dú Réel, Switzerland – Regard neuf

2015, Dok Leipzig, Germany – German Competition

2015, Festival internacional de cine Morelia, México – Cine sin fronteras

2015, Les Écrans Documentaires, France – Competition

2015, Signes de nuit, France – Cinema in Transgression, Main Award

2016, Riviera Maya Film Festival, Mexico – Mexican Competition

2016, Encuentros del otro cine, Ecuador – Program

2016, Festival de cine Oaxaca, Mexico – Program

2016, Signes de nuit, Portugal – Cinema in Transgression, Special Mention Jury

Flipping the coin Films

Einzelunternehmen Alexander Hick

Hugo- Kauffmannstr. 14

83209, Prien