Exclusive: Clip for Andrés Peyrot’s God is a Woman – 2023 Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week

Tomorrow the Venice International Film Festival sets its sails on its 80th edition and among the treasures in the Venice Critics’ Week we find a film about a hidden (does it still exist?) film in the out-of-competition opener God Is a Woman (Dieu est une femme) by Swiss-Panamanian filmmaker Andrés Peyrot. Also selected for the upcoming Toronto Intl. Film Festival, Peyrot sets off to discover the importance of this document. In 1975, the renowned French Oscar-winning director Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (Sky Above and Mud Beneath was the first ever doc awarded for the category) embarked on a journey to Panama with the purpose of documenting the Kuna community, a place where women hold a sacred status. Accompanying him were his wife and their young daughter, Akiko, and together, they immersed themselves in the Kuna way of life for an entire year…..the unfortunate seizure of the film reels by a bank shipwrecked the release of the film…but the legend of the filming of the doc has been passed down through generations, narrated by the elders to the youth. In a surprising turn of events, a hidden copy of the film resurfaces in the City of Light…We’ve got an exclusive clip that basically showcases its importance to the Kuna community…