Julie

The film Julie shows a young woman running through a snowy landscape wearing a sports outfit with an unusual bright-red helmet-like hat and an eye patch. The woman appears unfazed by the cold as she determinedly starts walking on her hands, the skin of her bare palms directly touching the frozen ground for what seems like a painful eternity. The woman walks not only on her hands, but also backwards.

Her actions exude a particular independence and joy. Through her assured vitality the snow becomes no longer a challenge to her bare hands, but their natural environment. As the camera turns with the woman, we move with her, upside down, so that our world becomes inverted. What is difficult looks easy, and what must be painful is achieved with ease and grace. The film portrays an almost exaggerated defiance, at once refreshing and recognizable as that universal kind of strength and determination needed to work against the grain of dominant systems and power structures.

Tessa Praun, Curator, January 2013