Venice Film Festival 2023: God is a Woman (Critics’ Week Opening Film) | Review
Swiss-Panamanian director Andrés Peyrot takes on French documentary maker Pierre Dominique Gaisseau’s lost film about Kuna tribe in Panama, in God is a Woman, which opened Venice’s 38th Settimana Internazionale della Critica.
In 1975, Oscar winner Pierre Dominique Gaisseau (Sky Above and Mud Beneath) traveled to the San Blas Islands on the North coast of the Isthmus of Panama to film its indigenous people and initiation ceremonies conducted by this matriarchal society, where women hold sacred status to their community. Gaisseau, accompanied by his wife Kyoko and their daughter Keiko went to the island and lived with the Kunas for a year. A special bond between the family and the Kunas seems so tight as the Kunas named the film after Gaisseau’s cute daughter, although the original title for Gaisseau’s project is Dieu est une femme (God is a Woman) – which was later used by Peyrot for this film – so, when the Kunas are not able to see their film because Gaisseau runs out of funds and the bank confiscates the reel, even after 50 years, the Kunas are still waiting for it because the Frenchman has promised on their ground; “When I finish this film, I’ll give it to you”. But it never happened and eventually, the filming of the documentary became a legend among the community and has been passed down through generations, narrated by the elders to the youth.
“Today, I’m still waiting because they filmed my wedding and I never saw it.” A lot of people have died since then, their mothers, their grandmothers, and even their deceased father-in-law was filmed by Gaisseau. Many Kuna members from the 1970s retrain strong memories with Gaisseasu and that’s why “Keiko” was important to the community not just because the film is about themselves but because their memories bring out discrepancies between the past and present. Arysteides Turpana, who assisted Gaisseau during his shoot, and passed away in 2020 said in one interview that Gaisseau once said that Europe would laugh at him because he was showing a plastic bottle during an initiation ceremony while in recent years where Kuna’s houses mostly built in bricks, the younger kids didn’t even know sweet potatoes because they never planted it again. It becomes a form of modernity for indigenous people as they enter a new world.
50 years have passed by and a hidden copy was found in Paris and eventually, a special screening was arranged by Kunas, led by the younger generation who pushing boundaries to become filmmakers. This is basically the point of Peyrot’s documentary; to bring back the inheritance to its roots, raising questions around for who the documentary was made for, and to celebrate cinema itself with everyone. The Swiss director of Panamanian origin has made a nostalgic journey even more personal and luminous with his canon. God is a Woman is a love letter to the community, Gaisseau, and everyone who loves cinema.
Peyrot’s film, world premiered and opened the Critis’ Week at the 80th Venice Film Festival in the Out of Competition slot, and will soon receive its North American premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. The documentary film is produced by Brieuc Dréano, Andrés Peyrot (Industrie Films), Johan De Faria, Sébastien Deurdilly (Upside Films), and Xavier Grin (P.S. Productions), Paris-based Pyramide International are selling the doc.
