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“Uncanny, The Dolls of Mariana Monteagudo” is a short documentary about renowned Venezuelan visual artist currently residing in Florida, Mariana Monteagudo; her creative process and her inspirations behind her intriguing, eerie and culturally hybrid doll sculptures, all made of repurposed materials that were originally waste. In the film, we closely follow Mariana into the creation of her new doll series “Uncanny”, and topics like capitalism, immigration, maternity, contemporary art, terror and the repurposing of objects are explored.
Coming from a strong family tradition of ceramists in Venezuela, Mariana loves giving a second life to objects that are discarded by our society. Like a waste picker, she walks around neighborhoods to salvage gems from people's bulk trashes, rescuing textiles or baseball balls, plastic bottles of orange juice or an old unkempt teddy bear. Mariana also visits local thrift stores looking for unwanted objects that may excite her creativity, contributing with the processes of upcycling and reuse. To her, everything has potential for inspiration and hybridism, and that's the way she lives her life: continuously seeking, always resuscitating abandoned things, permanently combining and thinking ahead of time and placing her faith into the most unimagined creations. But when you see those dolls, everything makes sense, and a magical symbiosis is initiated, resulting in the reflection of today’s globalized and interconnected world.
The film is a regional Emmy® award winner 2020 by The Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. It won the PBS festival "The Film-maker Project" as well as received the title Audience Award earning local and national broadcast and distribution by PBS. It is winner of Best Documentary 2019 of the Miami Independent Film Festival and Audience Award from I'm Not Gonna Move to L.A. festival. It was also accepted in the Female Eye Film Festival of Toronto; regarded top 50 festivals in the world; as well as official selection of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
This film was shaped by a one-woman-band crew. Produced by The Lunch Box Studio.
Duration: 28:36min
IMDB page here.
