Narcisa Hirsch

Directing

Narcisa Hirsch

Born 1928-01-16 · Berlin, Germany

Narcisa Hirsch (née Heuser, born 1928) is an Argentine experimental filmmaker of German birth. Her work centered on themes of the body, love, sex, death, movement, and the female gaze. Despite this focus on women, she has resisted being labeled as a feminist. She began as a painter, and but her later and better known work centers on performance and film, though she has also written several books. She cites Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel as influences to her experimental film work, as well as the Bauhaus artists of Germany. During her time as an experimental filmmaker in Argentina, she frequented the Di Tella Institute and the Goethe Institute, a place where many of her works premiered. Recenlty, her work has been honored through several retrospectives at international film festivals, though it was relatively unknown outside of exclusive circles when it first premiered. Description above from the Wikipedia article Narcisa Hirsch, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Narcisa poster
6.0

This documentary is an approach to the experience of seeing and listening to the trajectory of Narcisa Hirsch, a pioneer of Argentine experimental cinema, but who has also been part of the happenings and performances of the 1960s and 1970s.

Narcisa

2014

Herbaria poster
9.0

In his second feature film, Leandro Listorti establishes a parallel between two worlds he seems to know well: that of plants and that of cinema. This delicate cinematographic work, full of beautiful images—both archival and current—gives an account of the immense work of classification and preservation, and generously invites us to think about forms of representation and memory.

Herbaria

2022

Butoh poster
1.0

No synopsis available yet.

Butoh

2013

Reflejo Narcisa poster
NR

A portrait of Narcisa Hirsch, Argentine filmmaker, pioneer of experimental cinema. The artist explores the path of her memories, where the traces of some men appear, which are transposed with the constant reference to the desert.

Reflejo Narcisa

2014

El Aleph poster
6.6

The Aleph is the point where diachronic and synchronic times meet, and each second represents a moment in life, from birth to death.

El Aleph

2005

Surely Bach Closed the Door When He Wanted to Work poster
NR

Portrait of women where they look at the images of their own faces and reflect on that experience.

Surely Bach Closed the Door When He Wanted to Work

1979

Yo veo conejos poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Yo veo conejos

1967

No artwork available
5.0

"Life is a latency that as time and space becomes visible as a figure. But never eat at all, there are other possible lives. Making a life is difficult, filming the impossible itself . with this imago-auto-bio-graphy is an attempt to talk about this ambiguity, where what could be is the possibility of a memory, where what was and what was not, can be remembered in the same way, . always I lived with mixing the imagined thing is chosen in this chancy; go left on the road the other films that might have emerged" -Narcisa Hirsch

El Mito de Narciso

2011

time/ OUT OF JOINT poster
NR

With research that spans the work of philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Martin Heidegger to modern mythologies in which time reversal plays a crucial role — such as failed time machines, speed of light travel, and occult practices involving speech — Stracke combines science and philosophy in an attempt to defy death through cinema and the notion of time reversal.

time/ OUT OF JOINT

2015

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

El refugio de Narcisa Heuser

2023

Instead of Trees poster
NR

A film critic with philosophical interests, played by the film critic Roger Koza, wonders about the nature of Nature. And he obsessively tries to capture it with his phone camera. Other experts—filmmakers from different countries, art historians, a scenographer in charge of a natural science museum, and members of the human species from a distant future—think about ways of representating nature. A kaleidoscopic, playful collage, sometimes fiction, sometimes documentary, the film cannot help but wonder about the nature of cinema itself.

Instead of Trees

2026

Marabunta poster
6.0

Marabunta, a ceremony in collective anthropophagy involving a six-meter skeleton completely covered in fruit and food, inside of which were live doves and parrots painted with phosphorescent colors that flew out as people were eating.

Marabunta

1967

Muñecos (Have a baby) poster
NR

The Super 8mm film “Muñecos” (1972) — shot by the artist, Leopoldo Maler and Carolee Schneemann — combines recordings of a happening by Hirsch that took place in three cities: in Buenos Aires, London, and New York. In each, she is seen handing out 500 tiny baby dolls to bystanders, while candidly suggesting to everyone: “Have a baby!” This work was made in response to a period of strong pro-natalist and anti-contraceptive policies pushed by the Argentinian government.

Muñecos (Have a baby)

1972

Pradera poster
NR

The hands of Narcisa Hirsch, a nonagenarian, open another Super 8 film cartridge to load a camera. In what seems like a ritual of passing on a legacy, the grandmother and her grandson, Tomás Rautenstrauch, watch a film of a meadow that gradually fills the frame.

Pradera

Apples poster
NR

Happening by Narcisa Hirsch, where she gives free apples in the street while we hear passersby's comments.

Apples

1966

Tambores en la plaza poster
NR

Hirsch’s first steps in filmmaking were documentations of her performances and happenings in public spaces. These were collective actions, filmed initially on 8mm or 16mm film, which record the reactions of a randomly chosen spectator.

Tambores en la plaza

1970

Behind the camera

Kosmos poster
NR

Twins still in their amniotic fluid announce our human condition, our compulsion to walk, move forward, run. When everything moves, we go through the forest of emotions in a dreamlike way. But it is thanks to water and its light reflections, to its transforming power that the infinite “Kosmos” plays with our uncertainty.

Kosmos

2017

Kosmos poster
NR

Twins still in their amniotic fluid announce our human condition, our compulsion to walk, move forward, run. When everything moves, we go through the forest of emotions in a dreamlike way. But it is thanks to water and its light reflections, to its transforming power that the infinite “Kosmos” plays with our uncertainty.

Kosmos

2017

Myst poster
NR

"The world is a tarantula ... a big, dark tarantula, moving around weaving its own web." A journey into myths and origins of the world with the grand dame of Argentine avant-garde cinema. See the Earth as it really is: A marble spinning in a sea of eternity.

Myst

2019

El Aleph poster
6.6

The Aleph is the point where diachronic and synchronic times meet, and each second represents a moment in life, from birth to death.

El Aleph

2005

Surely Bach Closed the Door When He Wanted to Work poster
NR

Portrait of women where they look at the images of their own faces and reflect on that experience.

Surely Bach Closed the Door When He Wanted to Work

1979

Retrato de Marta Minujín poster
NR

"Academia del fracaso" is a speculative aesthetic fact of a polemic nature, as Marta Minujín explains when she talks about her work. Portrayed in this film explaining the functioning of her participatory performance in 1974, the artist extends herself to reflect and talk about some things, many things, that make up the world and its ideas.

Retrato de Marta Minujín

1974

Pioneros poster
NR

Documentary about Jewish colonizers in Argentina.

Pioneros

1976

No artwork available
5.0

"Life is a latency that as time and space becomes visible as a figure. But never eat at all, there are other possible lives. Making a life is difficult, filming the impossible itself . with this imago-auto-bio-graphy is an attempt to talk about this ambiguity, where what could be is the possibility of a memory, where what was and what was not, can be remembered in the same way, . always I lived with mixing the imagined thing is chosen in this chancy; go left on the road the other films that might have emerged" -Narcisa Hirsch

El Mito de Narciso

2011

No artwork available
6.0

The life story of an artist. The fantasy of a poetic burial accompanied by friends of cinema.

Testamento y vida interior

1977

la velocidad del tiempo poster
NR

"the speed of time dissolves thought"

la velocidad del tiempo

2012

Ana, ¿Dónde Estás? poster
7.0

The dialogue of a woman with herself split into two unknown opposites.

Ana, ¿Dónde Estás?

1985

Ana, ¿Dónde Estás? poster
7.0

The dialogue of a woman with herself split into two unknown opposites.

Ana, ¿Dónde Estás?

1985

Ana, ¿Dónde Estás? poster
7.0

The dialogue of a woman with herself split into two unknown opposites.

Ana, ¿Dónde Estás?

1985

The Bengali Night poster
NR

“ Cinema is what happens between frames," said German experimental filmmaker Werner Nekes. A woman and a man are on the ground together but it looks as though they are floating without moving. Silence overruns the scene; she stops and walks away. La Noche Bengalí is a documentary made as part of the seminar that Wernes Nekes held in Buenos Aires in 1980, sponsored by the Goethe Institute.

The Bengali Night

1980

No artwork available
5.0

A Super 8 film by Narcisa Hirsch

Diarios Patagónicos 1

1970

Marabunta poster
6.0

Marabunta, a ceremony in collective anthropophagy involving a six-meter skeleton completely covered in fruit and food, inside of which were live doves and parrots painted with phosphorescent colors that flew out as people were eating.

Marabunta

1967

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Celebración

2007

Los chicos y la calle poster
10.0

The movie follows a group of children living in the streets in the city of Buenos Aires. The only day center working is the CAINA (Centro de Atención Integral a la Niñez y Adolescencia) an institution that assists and shelters street children.

Los chicos y la calle

2002

Los chicos y la calle poster
10.0

The movie follows a group of children living in the streets in the city of Buenos Aires. The only day center working is the CAINA (Centro de Atención Integral a la Niñez y Adolescencia) an institution that assists and shelters street children.

Los chicos y la calle

2002

Mundial poster
NR

An unpublished piece by this pioneer of experimental cinema with the participation of Elías Cherñajovsky and Sergio Levin.

Mundial

1978

Muñecos (Have a baby) poster
NR

The Super 8mm film “Muñecos” (1972) — shot by the artist, Leopoldo Maler and Carolee Schneemann — combines recordings of a happening by Hirsch that took place in three cities: in Buenos Aires, London, and New York. In each, she is seen handing out 500 tiny baby dolls to bystanders, while candidly suggesting to everyone: “Have a baby!” This work was made in response to a period of strong pro-natalist and anti-contraceptive policies pushed by the Argentinian government.

Muñecos (Have a baby)

1972

Para Virginia poster
NR

A tribute to Virginia, a 23-year-old girl who apparently committed suicide in Ibiza. Excerpts from her letters to Narcisa, written on the walls, appear in the film as a leitmotif.

Para Virginia

1979

Pradera poster
NR

The hands of Narcisa Hirsch, a nonagenarian, open another Super 8 film cartridge to load a camera. In what seems like a ritual of passing on a legacy, the grandmother and her grandson, Tomás Rautenstrauch, watch a film of a meadow that gradually fills the frame.

Pradera

Mujeres poster
NR

Women in different situations of life, accompanied occasionally by images of nature. Men appear alone in different roles, like a ski athlete, a musician, and a judge, the latter, in a scene from Dreyer's film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).

Mujeres

1985