Marlene Dumas

Seventeen-year-olds Miku and Elias find themselves, and each other, during a summer in the Finnish countryside.

A journalist (Liane Balaban) meets “Man of Today” (Paul Ahmarani) who, while a responsible citizen, is disengaged from greater society. He believes once he’s dead nothing more matters. As an experiment to see if she can turn his pessimistic view around, the journalist sends him on a journey of enlightenment to prove that the future does matter. Travelling the globe, he finds himself in surprising encounters with great minds in the arts and sciences. Starting with an unexpected poetry reading and conversation with experimental poet Christian Bök, Man of Today engages with architect Shigeru Ban, activist Francis Dupuis-Déri, philosopher Alain de Botton, artist Marlene Dumas, novelist Rivka Galchen, leading scientists and a ghost. Will the journalist succeed in turning a cynic into an optimist? Will it matter? What can one person do?

S8 experimental short by Marlene Dumas, her only film.

A film about the artist Marlene Dumas: - There's no right way to portray or to understand someone. It's just an acknowledgment , not a denial of reality. Here are my paintings.