Life is not a competition, but I’m winning
GENRE-BENDING DOCUMENTARY – 79 MIN – 2023
The documentary film form has a preference for showing their protagonists while suffering. Despite all the good intentions, such narratives tend to exploit the protagonists‘ experiences, as they are used for the dramaturgical centre of a film. Conflict drives the story. But by restricting a film to the description of pain, the cinematic stage is often given to the forces causing these painful circumstances in the first place.
In »Life is not a competition, but I’m winning« it was crucial for us to not use the protagonists’ suffering to build a suspenseful narrative. Instead, utopian moments of collective togetherness slowly weave themselves into the lives of the protagonists as well as into the visual composition of our images. Suffering and pain merge into a vision of queer community that builds a powerful counterpart to the violence that was committed.
The crew of this project was made up of women and queer people only – not only for reasons of representation, but also because the incorporation of all participants’ experiences and the atmosphere during the shooting were essential for our project.
Synopsis
If history is written by the victors, where does that leave those who were never allowed to be part of the game? A collective of queer athletes enters the Olympic Stadium in Athens and sets out to honour those who were excluded from standing on the winners’ podium. They meet Amanda Reiter, a trans* marathon runner who has to struggle with the prejudices of sports organisers and Annet Negesa, a 800m runner who was urged by the international sports federations to undergo hormone-altering surgery. Together they create a radical utopia far from the rigid gender rules in competitive sports.
Crew & Cast
directed by Julia Fuhr Mann cinematography Caroline Spreitzenbart sound design Cornelia Böhm gaffer Janne Ebel 1st AC Nadja Krüger on-set sound Rhys Anderson costume design Angela Queins set design Sonja Schreiber, Mireia Vila Soriano make-up artist Mai Strathmann editing Merit Giesen, Melanie Jilg vfx artists Isabelle Kramer, Fabian Peitzsch graphic design Anna Lind Haugaard dramaturgical advice Lena Hatebur, Susanne Bieger 3sat/ZDF Katya Mader producer Melissa Byrne production Sophie Ahrens, Fabian Altenried, Kristof Gerega
with Annet Negesa, Amanda Reiter, Caitlin Fisher, Daniel Marin Medina, Chun Mei Tan, Eva Maria Jost, Jakob Levi Stahlberg, Oumou Aidara, Greta Graf
funded by FFF Bayern winner of ARRI postproduction award winner of British Pathé Archive Award part of Locarno First Look part of Into the Wild Mentoring
© Schuldenberg Films / University of Television and Film Munich / ZDF / 2023
Media
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Festivals
Venice International Film Festival, Settimana della Critica – World premiere – 2023
Filmfest Hamburg – German premiere – 2023
Filmfest Osnabrück – Opening film – 2023
Queer Film Festival Munich – 2023
Hamburg International Queer Film Festival – 2023
DocLisboa, Heart Beat Section – 2023
Queerfilm Festival Bremen – 2023
Date
79 MIN – 2023