Unica Zürn

An homage to the German-born surrealist visual artist and author of The Man of Jasmine, House of Illnesses, and much anagrammatic poetry, through the lens of her ulitmately fatal mental illness and her strange friendship and obsession with the French surrealist Henri Michaux--or maybe just someone or thing with those initials.

Director Biography - Eddy Falconer

After a colorful youth during which they suffered their own breakdowns in Berlin and in Paris, Eddy came to their senses and made more movies, theater, paintings, spoken word performances, etc etc. Born 1965 in Massachusetts and raised in San Francisco, Eddy lives in Berkeley, CA.

Director Statement

This film is a product of the uncanny universe in which, I've discovered, many of my own hallucinations, related experiences and preoccupations had been previously shared by Unica Zürn, (1916-1970), whose artistic legacy seemed to me to flourish in Reunification-era Berlin. That's where I spent most of my 20s. It took me 30 years to (in the end, suddenly) discover how much our visions and praxes had in common, even despite the very different historical and personal circumstances, backgrounds and affections. Perhaps I am merely something or someone Unica envisioned, much as I now can only imagine her!

I met her 'again' through exploring the work of Michaux, and then a third time by chance when a friend mentioned it was Unica's birthday one day. And then there was a moment I thought everyone knew her whole story but me, and that was devastating. But this last is not so, not least because in English, most of her work has gone out of print. I hope to help revive interest in Zürn's work through what is actually for me a very personal film and not at all about Zürn exclusively. In the end, anyone can have thought at some point that actors have been hired to play key people in their lives....and on it goes.