Deux Soeurs Qui Ne Sont Pas Soeurs (Two Sisters Who Are Not Sisters)

Beatrice Gibson
2019

Two sisters (who are not sisters), two pregnancies, a two-seater car, a beauty queen, a poodle. The election of a second fascist - this time in Brazil. A crime thriller without a crime, Deux soeurs… unfolds like a dream. Based on an original screenplay by Gertrude Stein. Casting an intimate network of the directors friends and influences as its principle actors, from renowned New York school poet Alice Notley to educator Diocouda Diaoune and playing on Stein's interest in autobiography and repetition, Deux souers is simultaneously an abstract thriller and a collective portrait. An exploration of inheritance, responsibility, ethics and futurity. Shot on 16mm anamorphic by friend and filmaker Ben Rivers and featuring an original soundtrack by British composer Laurence Crane.

About the artist:
Gibson's films are known for their experimental and emotive nature. Resolutely feminist in form and content they explore the personal and the political and draw on cult figures from experimental literature and poetry - from Kathy Acker to Gertrude Stein. Collapsing fiction and documentary, and liquefying both, they range from experimental autobiography to nocturnal thriller and cast friends and influences as their characters and co creators. Collaboration and credit are at their heart. Gibson is twice winner of The Tiger Award for Best Short Film Rotterdam International Film Festival, in 2009 and 2013 respectively. In 2013 she was shortlisted for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women and in 2015 won the 17th Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel. She has been twice Shortlisted for the The Jarman Award for Artist's filmin 2013 and 2019 respesctively. Gibson has recently had recent solo exhibitions at Ordet, Milano (2023) Camden Arts Centre, London, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen Mercer Union, Toronto (2019) and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, (2018). Her films have shown at film festivals around the word, including at New York Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, London Film Festival, Oberhausen Film Festival, Courtisane Film Festival, Punto De Vista International Documentary Film Festival and many more.

Her latest film premiered at Quinzaine (Directors Fortnight) Cannes Film Festival in 2019. She is currently developing her first feature with BBC films, a love story, set during the course of one night, inspired by Kathy Acker's Don Quixote and Alice Notley's The Descent of Alette. A complete retrospective of Gibson’s films was screened at Fondazione Prada, in December 2023. Gibson is a founding member of monthly cinema club The Machine that Kills Bad People at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, alongside Ben Rivers, Maria Palacios Cruz and Erika Balsom. In 2021 she founded Nuova Orfeo a collectively run, roving initiative for experimental film and performance in Palermo, Sicily. Gibson's films are distributed by LUX, London.