Loïe Fuller – The Electric Sprite

A documentary of Loïe Fuller told in the same abstract, Art Nouveau aesthetic that Fuller was famous for. As a pioneer of visual effects and modern dance, what emerges is the story of a woman whose innovations played into the early history of cinema.

Amanda Barbour in the catalogue for Tricky Women/Tricky Realities 2022

Deutsche Film und Medienbewertung:
Prädikat besonders wertvoll – FBW-Rating ‟Special Commendation”

“I was born in America – but made in Paris.” Loïe Fuller once said that about herself. The charismatic and multi-talented woman invented and perfected the so-called “serpentine dance” at the end of the 19th century and thrilled her audience with it. But Fuller was not satisfied with the role as a dancer. She patented her inventions, taught her art to other girls and women, organised tours for other artists and arranged performances of all kinds. All this together with her partner Gab Sorère. In her animated documentary, filmmaker and artist Betina Kuntzsch focuses on this extraordinary creative and lets her life and work fan out in a unique rush of images. Kuntzsch’s animation, the rhythmic montage and the accompanying music turn the carefully composed historical footage into a constantly changing kaleidoscope of impressions. And in its cinematic style, it could hardly better imitate Fuller’s legendary dance itself, in which light and movement, powerful and flowing movements unite. To a Gesamtkunstwerk that respectfully bows to the great artist Loïe Fuller and celebrates her extraordinary life as an independent and emancipated woman.

Deutsche Film- und Medienbewertung. FBW, 2022

35. International Filmfest Dresden:
LUCA GenderDiversity Film Award

We honour a multi-voiced and electrifying film that blends historical footage with animation and evocative music to portray a queer pioneer of visual art and her relationship with another woman: Loïe Fuller and Gab Sorère. Together, they popularised the Serpentine Dance in the United States and Europe during the 19th century. This archaeologically inspired film simultaneously offers a critical perspective on the prevailing history of film, which is also a history of exploitation and forgetting. In this history, the names of the Lumière brothers naturally occupy a place alongside concepts such as “cinema” or “Serpentine Dance”, while the names of female visionaries who shaped this art are often missing.
The filmmaker we honour is also a versatile, interdisciplinary artist whose work is a patchwork of materials and artistic approaches. Through her own creations and those of Loïe Fuller, whom she brings back to our memory, she demonstrates that queer art transcends shallow identity attributions – that it crosses boundaries of storytelling, gaze and image to create new perspectives on history and ultimately on our present.

Sponsors: LAG Jungen- und Männerarbeit Sachsen, Genderkompetenzzentrum Sachsen, LAG Queeres Netzwerk Sachsen