The Girl Behind the White Picket Fence
Feature (61 min.)
a project by Stefanie Schneider
cast: Udo Kier, Heather Megan Christie, Steve Marshall, Kyle Larson, Jeff Leaf Camille Waldorf, music: Adam Weiss, Daisy McCrackin, Zoe Bicat, Axel Ruhland, Sophie Huber, Max Sharam, script: Stefanie Schneider, Tanja Trittmann, Robert Mack, Cheyenne Randall, Billy Harvey, directed, photographed and edited by Stefanie Schneider, producer micafilm, Berlin, producer California Instantdreams, Lance Waterman, co-produced by Arte, supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. >> order DVD for €30
-filmed with Polaroid film stock and Super-8 footage, overlaid with poetic voice-over monologue - this feature film creates a dynamic kaleidoscope of words and pictures, a dreamy tale that channels Terrence Malick, Gus Van Sant, and pages torn from a lonely girl's journal (Palms Springs life magazine / Caroline Ryder)
The art film "The Girl Behind the White Picket Fence", presents a cryptic exploration of love set against a backdrop of a seemingly hopeless yet relentlessly continuing future. The narrative begins with Heather, an orphaned girl played by Heather Megan Christie, who resides in her parents' 50-foot travel trailer in the Southern California Desert. Heather's journey is driven by her ambition to grow and find love, but she soon discovers that life is far more complex than she initially thought. Retreating to the solitude of her trailer, she stumbles upon 'The Lonely Hearts Radio Station,' a broadcast that resonates deeply with her. The radio DJ, portrayed by Steve Marshall, is himself a figure haunted by a mysterious past marked by ended affairs and personal demons. Meanwhile, Hank, the local garbage man played by Kyle Larson, is grappling with the recent loss of his wife. Upon hearing Heather's calls on the radio, Hank becomes obsessed with her and starts collecting her discarded memories during his garbage routes.As the story unfolds, the DJ falls deeply in love with Heather, despite never having met her, and sabotages Hank's interest by competing for her heart. Through the medium of the radio, love is rekindled, and the cycle of relationships continues.A pivotal turn in the narrative comes with the appearance of a mystic shaman, played by Udo Kier, who attempts to bring Heather and Hank together. Although his initial efforts fail, he ultimately succeeds in guiding Heather through a bizarre dream, helping her become aware and find her future love. The film concludes on a seemingly happy note, yet it leaves the audience with the realization that the future they are embracing may be inherently hollow.
>> www.heatherdreams.com
Heather's Dream
Short (15 min.)
a project by Stefanie Schneider
cast: Udo Kier, Heather Megan Christie, Camille Waldorf, music: Adam Weiss, script: Tanja Trittmann, directed, photographed and edited by Stefanie Schneider, producer micafilm, Berlin, co-produced by Arte, supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg >> order DVD for €20
"Heather's Dream" has been accepted in the competition at the Short Film Festival in Oberhausen in May 2013!
July 2013 - nominated for the German Short Film Award (Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis) 2013
Heather (Heather Megan Christie) lies on her bed and narrates off screen: "One morning I didn´t wake up. I had a fever". And then finds herself in a dazzling desert landscape. Here a magic doctor (Udo Kier) pursues his work in his office. Something is going on. Everything seems to be prepared. The atmosphere in his office, open to all directions is hypnotic. The patient is waiting for her mysterious treatment. Dried up plants are sitting on the table. A flip book, a suitcase, a broken heart.... Enchanted examinations begin. The bizarre, charismatic doctor continues his evaluation assisted by a fairy-like nurse (Camille Waldorf). The process follows a secret logic and Heather understands that there is hope to be healed. Heather's Dream has not been filmed in a classical way but Udo Kier's and Heather Megan Christie's acting has been photographed action by action, step by step with thousands of Polaroids and edited into sequence, combined with Super-8 footage. The bright light of California, the forsaken abandoned landscapes around 29 Palms and the faded colors of the Polaroid film contribute to the poetic and surreal atmosphere of he film.
>> www.heatherdreams.com
29 Palms, CA
a project by Stefanie Schneider
in collobaration with Radha Mitchell, Renée Chabria, Marc Forster, Nadia Conners, Robert Mack, Camille Waldorf, JD Rudometkin and Udo Kier
producers: Mica film, Berlin, Caroline Haertel, Udo Kier, Robert Mack, Lance Waterman
a project by stefanie schneider
story and script written by jd rudometkin
acting by jd rudometkin and stefanie schneider
assistance kirsten schneider
Adam Budak, Kunsthaus Graz, Oct 2005
"MICA films", a Berlin based production company run by Caro- line Haertel and Mirjana Momirovic is currently producing the episode.
A film shot on Polaroid stills combined with Super 8 film sequences has never been done before. This unique project will be co-produced by ARTE and has received film funding from "Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg".
"Till death do us part" tells the love story of two beautiful women in the Californian desert. Cristal (Daisy McCracking) and Margarita (Austin Tate) meet in the abandoned town of 29 Palms,CA. They are both longing for something better after leaving a life neither could bare. They are full of hope and an intense lust for life. They want to live in the now, fast and wild. Their love starts on fast forward from the moment they meet.
The Californian desert light and the vintage colours of Polaroid create a unforgetable atmosphere in the abandoned trailer park.
Austen Tate gives Margarita her voice in poetry and Daisy McCrackin give Cristal her sound in music. Additional music by Zoe Bicat and Sophie Huber.
Mica Film and Stefanie Schneider have founded the Record Label "29 Palms, CA Records" and Released the Soundtrack "Till Death Do Us Part" of Daisy McCrackin's music.
a project by stefanie schneider
images, mise en scène and editing by stefanie schneider
with renée chabria, scott springer, derrik first
assistance kirsten schneider
....In Renée’s Dream, issues of role reversal take place as the cowgirl on her horse undermines the male stereotype of Richard Prince’s ‘Marlboro Country’. This photo-work along with several others by Schneider, continue to undermine the focus of the male gaze, for her women are in- creasingly autonomous and subver- sive. They challenge the male role of sexual predator, often taking the lead and undermining masculine role play, trading on male fears that their desires can be so easily attained. That she does this by working through archetypal male conventions of American culture, is not the least of the accomplishments in her work. What we are confronted with frequently is of an idyll turned sour, the filmic clichés that Hollywood and American television dramas have promoted for fifty years. The citing of this in the Romantic West, where so many of the male clichés were generated, only adds to the diminishing sense of substance once attributed to these iconic American fabrications. And, that she is able to do this through photographic images rather than film, undercuts the dominance espoused by time-based film. Film feigns to be seamless though we know it is not. Film operates with a story board and setting in which scenes are elaborately arranged and pre-planned. Schneider has thus been able to generate a genre of fragmentary events, the assemblage of a story without a storyboard. But these post-narratological stories require another component, and that component is the viewer who must bring his own interpretation as to what is taking place. If this can be considered the upside of her work, the downside is that she never positions herself by giving a personal opinion as to the events that are taking place in her photographs. But, perhaps, this is nothing more than her use of the operation of chance dictates....
Marc Gisbourne, “Stranger Than Paradise”
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A dark room. An installation of 32 Lightboxes (20x20cm to 40x50cm) connected to speakers on 4 walls. As the images light up, the inhabitants of "29 Palms, CA" tell their stories and relate to each other. The audience stands in the middle of the room and at times more than one image lights up and the Voices, Sounds and / or music surround the viewer. The installation runs on an endless loop.
Stefanie Schneider meets Cyndi Lauper
{ ARTE 10.05.2008 20:15 - 21:00 }
Stefanie Schneider photographs the Cyndi Lauper cover 2008.
__the substory of 29 Palms, CA [ an art project by Stefanie Schneider ]
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