Mad Mimes

6/11/2023

Dimitri Venkov in conversation with Alexandra MacGilp for Cannibal Manifest exhibition catalogue AM: What inspired The Mad Mimes and how did it develop while you were making it? ​ DV: One of the lasting impressions of my formative years was a discovery of Jean Rouch’s ethno-fictions. There I saw a narrative mode that was neither documentary nor fiction, rather it went back and forth between them creating  uncertainty in regards with the nature of the material and the film itself. Half-consciously I ended up reproducing this model in my film where I tried to present a credible situation at first and then push the limits of plausibility without completely destroying it, without slipping into mockumentary mode where everything becomes a parody. I had the idea for the film as I