Feet in the Sand

This film makes a vital new contribution to her wider project: to give visibility to feminist art, film and history in the mirror of contemporary art. Drawing on Ruhm's longstanding interest in, and research into, the Italian Women's Liberation Movement (Rivolta femminile), the film revolves around the Italian feminist and author Carla Lonzi, a leading figure in the 1970a and 80s feminist movement. Lonzi dedicated the last years of her life to researching a group of French, 17th century, proto-feminists and this unfinished project is the starting point, as well as an echo chamber, for Ruhm's film. Rethinking Lonzi from a contemporary perspective, she highlights relevant feminist experiences across three centuries. While she weaves together a historical continuity where none was (visible) before, Lonzi's concept of a fractured, fragmented temporality lies at the heart of a film oscillates between fiction and reality, between real and invented documents and, at the same time, is itself an archive of feminist art.