LOVING HIGHSMITH

EVA VITIJA | SWITZERLAND + GERMANY | 2022 | 82 MIN | GERMAN, ENGLISH + FRENCH S.-T.EN.

In collaboration with

Acclaimed writer Patricia Highsmith, who wrote the first lesbian novel with a happy ending, shrugged off conventions the way she shrugged off genres. Framed by her unpublished diaries, unparalleled prose, and interviewed intimates, she can be seen as “the forever seeking,” an avid traveller who accumulated accolades and impassioned affairs.  

We follow Highsmith from her upbringing in Texas to her European adventures, stopping in at Berlin trans bars frequented by David Bowie and her own “women’s festival” of lusty admirers in Paris, and alongside her on a move to a French village where she could daydream in silence. Guided by Highsmith’s bravura writing – given voice by the throaty tones of Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) – we hear stories from former lovers about her rejections and resentments, and her living, for a time, the complicated double-life of her indelible characters from Carol. Eva Vitija’s documentary manages to give even the scribblings of plot structure a fervent energy and imbues the film’s flow with a dreamy potency, like Highsmith herself, who is seen typing in a cloud of smoke or walking her slow, masculine walk. Never less than captivating.

screening at Cinéma J.A. de Sève| NOVEMBER 26TH 3PM

ONLINE (November 27th to December 1st)