Double Bill: She Should Have Gone to the Moon & Faceless

SHE SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THE MOON (CFF PG)
Director: Ulrike Kubatta. UK/USA 2007. 58 mins.

A unique blend of interviews, archive material and stylised dramatic sequences, this documentary tells the remarkable story of Jerri Truhill who, in 1961, became one of the first women secretly trained by NASA to go into space. An initial phone conversation between Truhill and the filmmaker inspires a journey to meet the heroine in Texas.

FACELESS (CFF 15)
Director: Manu Luksch. UK/Austria 2007. 50 mins.

In an eerily familiar city, a reformed “Real-Time” Calendar has been introduced by the Big Brother state, dispensing with the past and the future, leaving citizens faceless, without memory or anticipation. Using fear to legitimise the constant observation of public space, people’s faces are erased, reducing them into a safe, anonymous collective. But one day the film’s protagonist abruptly regains her face and, with the help of the Spectral Children, she slowly discovers the lost power of the human individual and begins the search for its future. Using only images obtained from the operators of CCTV video-surveillance systems in London – as stated in the rules of the “Manifesto for CCTV Filmmakers” – Luksch transforms London using oppressively familiar views into a nightmarish stage.