Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.09.2015, Blaðsíða 50

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14 — 201518
I was lucky enough to get the chance to sit
down with Brynja and Kitty at the film fes-
tival, to discuss art, filmmaking, therapy,
and those damn elitist art types that ruin
it for everyone else.
Is it difficult to depict visual art
onscreen? Particularly here,
where you’re working with a lot
of video art.
“I didn’t find it really challenging or any-
thing like that,” Brynja says. “But I obvi-
ously wanted to show as much as I could
of Kitty’s work, in a way.”
I like a lot of the behind-the-
scenes shots.
“That’s more to do with the editing,” she
tells me. “Most of the behind-the-scenes
videos actually come from Kitty. There
was someone working with her who shot
that footage. What you see in the final ver-
sion of the film has more to do with my
editing.”
What was the most difficult
thing you found about shooting,
then, Brynja?
“There wasn’t any one thing in particular
that was exceptionally difficult. But gen-
erally, it would be the sound, and being a
self-shooting director, and just monitor-
ing practical things like batteries and the
sound and everything else. The editing
was even more difficult. That was a long
and very challenging process. With Kitty,
you must also always show up on time and
things like that.”
Kitty laughs. “That’s my favourite
thing.”
In the film, I got the impression
that The Weird Girls Project
helped you in a lot of ways, Kitty.
But do you ever feel like sort of
a therapist for the other women
involved?
Kitty laughs. “Hmm. Kind of,” she says,
uncertainly. “Some women write to me
and want to be a part of [Weird Girls]
because they have struggled with an eat-
ing disorder, or because they have gone
through something like bullying, or a
divorce, or they just feel that their life is
stagnant. Some do it just to get out of their
routine. Essentially, I’m providing the
same experience for all of them, but they
take their own therapy from it. I just pro-
vide this avenue.”
Do you think it has been success-
ful in that regard?
“The only reason I interview the women
first,” Kitty explains, “isn’t to select them
or to not select them. I never say that
someone can’t [become a Weird Girl] af-
ter interviewing them. It’s so that I can
understand if each individual person has a
specific ‘thing,’ so when they’re actually on
set I can pay particular attention if some-
one says they’re particularly shy—I can
make sure they aren’t hiding somehow,
or that they’re not being pushed too hard.
And some of the women out of it have got
much stronger body confidence. Some are
much less shy. Others just feel more free.
It’s always interesting to see what people
get from it.”
How did the two of you meet and
decide to make this film?
“Me and Kitty first met when she was
looking for a cinematographer for her
‘naked’ Weird Girls episode [#11],” Brynja
says. “Later on, Adrian and Heather—the
‘I Want To Be Weird’ producers—were
looking for an Icelandic director and I had
worked with Kitty on set. We were already
acquainted, so that’s how I got into it.”
So it was a product of that pecu-
liarly Icelandic brand of creative
nepotism?
“I don’t know about nepotism,” Kitty says.
“but there was a change in the documen-
tary. It was going to be following me a
little bit more than I originally thought it
would. I was very eager in saying I wanted
the director to be someone I got on with.
I am the sort of person who doesn’t want
someone who is nice all the time, nor
someone who is an asshole all the time.
I want someone in the middle—which is
Brynja.
“There were times, like when she
came to Devon with me, when Brynja
stayed with me at my family’s home, that
I was just like, ‘I don’t want to speak to
you.’ And she’d just be like ‘I don’t wanna
see you today,’ and I’d tell her ‘I don’t want
to see you today.’ So we’d go off and then
meet at the end of the day.”
“I don’t do vulnerable,” Kitty admits.
“There were even times I said to the pro-
ducer, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’
It’s a strange experience to go through. If
Brynja wasn’t the wonderful person that
she is, it may never have gotten to the
point it is at now. I tried to make sure it
was just around my work. [The documen-
tary] never gets to super-intrusive levels of
documentary, Kardashian style.”
What I felt came through really
strongly in the film was this idea
of being an artist without quali-
fications. What I really liked was
the idea that the women involved
in Weird Girls also became art-
ists simply by virtue of their
involvement. What do you think
the potential is for projects like
yours to deconstruct this idea of
an artist?
“Oh god,” Kitty says. “This is a very com-
plicated topic. I always wanted this proj-
ect and most of the work I do to be really
accessible to people not typically inter-
ested in art. From that perspective, some
women have come to me specifically be-
cause they ‘have never done anything ar-
tistic in [their] life’ who are then able to
say ‘this is the way I’m going to do it.’”
“It’s a very deep and long and con-
troversial topic, but I really believe that
the more that people can be involved in
art, and the more they enjoy expressing
themselves creatively, the better the world
becomes. If that basic idea pisses people
off, then they can go fuck themselves, ba-
sically, because I don’t see what’s offensive
about it.”
Last weekend’s Nordisk Panorama film festival saw the international premiere of Brynja
Dögg Friðriksdóttir’s documentary, ‘I Want To Be Weird’, which focuses on the exploits
of conceptual visual artist Kitty Von-Sometime. Kitty is perhaps most well-known for The
Weird Girls Project, a visual art series that aims to involve women from all walks of life in
artistic creation.
Photo Vasco Celio, Casper Hedberg
Words Ciarán Daly
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‘I Want To Be
Weird’
Reviewed by
Sam Wright Fairbanks
‘I Want To Be Weird’, director Brynja
Dögg Friðriksdóttir's first film, chronicles
The Weird Girls Project, an ongoing art
film series created, produced, and di-
rected by British-born, Reykjavík-based
concept artist Kitty Von-Sometime. The
vibe we get from Kitty, in interviews and
behind-the-scenes footage, is of a cool
friend-of-a-friend whose contributions to
a social setting are always welcome. She's
engaging, intelligent, and has a clear vision
and undeniable passion for what she does.
The film does well covering the pur-
poses of The Weird Girls Project, as well
as its effects on and benefits for its partic-
ipants—a safe space; an aid in developing
confidence, finding inner strength and de-
veloping positive body image; a way to ac-
tively engage art and creative process; and
a community built around shared experi-
ence. Further, we get a glimpse into the
personal life and history of the artist her-
self, which sheds light on how her projects
came to be, and what they could mean.
Unexpectedly, though to the added
benefit of the film, the viewer also gets
an interesting insight into the economic
side of art—problems of funding, of being
able to earn a living, and the intersection
between corporate sponsorship and busi-
ness interest, commissioned and commer-
cial art, and artistic integrity. The divisions
between these sectors aren't nearly as
black and white, or antagonistic, as some
would like to believe—that's what makes it
so interesting, and refreshing to see.
The misstep this film takes, though, is
with a sudden reduction of pace, content,
and focus as a way to develop the third
act. What was a broader overview of the
themes, goals, and inner machinations of
The Weird Girls Project becomes instead
a look into the hunt for resources, stress
and planning behind the creation of a se-
ries of commissioned light sculptures. It
screens as tacked-on supplemental mate-
rial, rather than resolutive or agglutinative
content, as it was perhaps intended to be.
And though fairly interesting in its own
right, this turn lacks the focus and energy
of the film's main subject. Luckily the di-
rector is competent enough, the content
and persons involved engaging enough,
that the most this shift does is to make
the run-time feel a bit longer than it is, or
needs to be.
Breaking
Weird
Checking in with
Kitty Von-Sometime and
Brynja Dögg Friðriksdóttir
at Nordisk Panorama
REVIEW