THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS (2021) unfolds the healing qualities of fungi and their ability to regenerate. This personal journey takes us on a walk alongside parasites, symbionts and decomposers offering ideas of both interconnectedness and collaboration. Driven by a vision of resistance, the encounters seek possibilities of renewal and question what connects us when the world seems to be falling apart. With mushrooms and their allies the fi lm invites to imagine a myco-cultural (r)evolution. What if the fungus could help us address and radically change our relationship to this world?
Driven by her love of curious encounters, Marion Neumann (1977, Germany) is an intuitive filmmaker. Her work is rooted in personal experience, navigating between documentary and experimental approaches, weaving narratives between science, poetry, and contemporary social issues. Her work aspires to create a sense of wonder to reflect on ways of being in this world. THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS is her 2nd feature film. As a cinematographer her illustrious collaborators include Jiska Rickels, Pauline Julier, Michel Favre, Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel. Based in Geneva, she co-founded an artist collective and continues to work with fungi.
THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS, 2021
89 min.
English, German, Japanese
English subtitles
Direction and Image: Marion Neumann
Sound and music: Olga Kokcharova
Editing: Marion Neumann, Orsola Valenti
Sound editing and Mix: Adrien Kessler
Color Grading: Robin Erard
Production Katia Monla & Luc Peter
Intermezzo Films
THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS is presented in the context of the Forms of Life research project.
Forms of Life is developed by Tina Gillen, Artist, Teacher and Researcher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Christophe Gallois, Curator, Head of Exhibitions at Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, and a group of students of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, in collaboration with Mudam Luxemboug.
(image: still from THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS, 2021, detail)