This deeply exploratory work is drawn exclusively from the eclectic personal and public archive, in multiple formats, of Andrea’s life until their lasting estrangement from both parents, aged 30. Alternating between the playful, poetic and unsettling, While the Gods… collages together photographs, 16mm, VHS, interviews and diary entries in a process of profound and necessary self – and social interrogation. Unflinching in its presentation and analysis of a precarious and challenging working-class childhood and adolescence in 1970s Munich, nevertheless While the Gods... manifests an enduring and wayward spirit of resistance, seeding the possibility of living a life on one’s own terms. (LUX)
EN
“Once I make a film, I must let it go and allow it to spark conversation, critique, or whatever responses people bring to it. Showing it to my students and to others was incredibly enriching, and I’m aware that public-facing discussions may bring a range of reactions, especially around survivorhood and visibility. For me, though, it’s not about self-presentation but about resisting the individualisation that shapes so much of our culture. What I really want to explore is how we relate to our own archives. Like [artist] Michelle Citron questioning why she looked so happy in her home movies, I find myself asking where the evidence of history truly lies. Cinema has taught us what misery, abuse and perpetrators look like – always villains. But in reality, they look like ordinary people. I wanted to play with those tropes, shaped as I was by home cinema and party films. Alongside this is a deeper conversation about what happens when we grow up without love, with neglect, and how we hold space for suffering in a society where therapy and care are often inaccessible.”
Andrea Luka Zimmerman1
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Andrea Luka Zimmerman, cited in Georgia Korossi, “Andrea Luka Zimmerman: ‘The 90s were amazing, but the brutal violence was real’,” BFI, 23 January 2026.
