Synopsis
Shot in the real-life contemporary art world, Female Human Animal is a psycho-thriller about a creative woman disenchanted with what modern life — and modern men — have to offer her.
In 2015, Tate staged a retrospective of the surrealist Leonora Carrington (1917- 2011), famously the lover of Max Ernst. Novelist Chloe Aridjis, who knew the artist from her native Mexico, was made guest curator of the exhibition.
Set between the real-life curation of the Tate show and something more fantasised, Female Human Animal sees Chloe increasingly disappointed by the men in her world — and increasingly haunted by Carrington’s strange artworks. When an elusive, brooding man seems to offer more, Chloe begins to pursue him, but is she hunter, or hunted? Enabled by Carrington’s own defiantly mysterious mythology, she descends into a world of obsession.
Shot on a rare 1980s video camera with a uniquely lurid, nostalgic colour response, and deftly weaving fact and fiction, Female Human Animal is a darkly romantic fantasia of a woman who goes beyond societal norms.
With acting talent including the Volksbuhne's Marc Hosemann, appearances from arts and literary luminaries like Marina Warner, Adam Thirlwell, Juliet Jacques and Tom McCarthy, and new music from OMD’s Andy McCluskey, Female Human Animal also pays homage to its guiding feminist spirit, the striking Leonora Carrington.
A film by Josh Appignanesi (The New Man, The Infidel, Song of Songs)
Devised with & starring Guggenheim-winning novelist Chloe Aridjis (Book of Clouds, Asunder)
Produced by Jacqui Davies (Ben Rivers’ The Sky Trembles, Richard Billingham’s RAY& LIZ)
Funded by Arts Council England
Haunted by Leonora Carrington