PRPR II: KRISTOF TRAKAL IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST (2012)
Experimental-Narrative Film
Running Time: 54’ 36’’
Language: German / English
Subtitles: English / German
Shooting Format: HD video
Exhibition Format: HD video file (1:1)
Jeff Goldblum impersonator Kristof Trakal leaves New York for San Francisco to star in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake. Caught up in the uncanny machinations of the production he is forced to retreat to an “intentional” therapeutic center in the Northern Californian Mountains with unexpected methods: he finds himself in an acting workshop to his inner Jurassic Park with Goldblum as his personal trainer. Trakal begins a journey through time, the Pacific Northwest and his personal Americanization through Cinema.
On my first trip to the Unites States I was confronted with places, people and scenes that I had been familiar with by way of Hollywood indoctrination since a teenager. The Pacific Northwest opened a mediated path to a part of myself and processes of identification through movies that i hadn’t uncovered before. The persona I created during travelling was a naive and emotional version of my teenage self and is thus, also called Kristof Trakal. His journey is a radically private coming of age limbo time travelogue, that encouters this specific region thorugh its cinematic, natural and colonial history. Part of my PREPARATIONS cycle about survivalism & preparationism, the film indexes visual cultures concerning survivalism, horror cinema, archive fever while paying tribute to the native communities to whom this land belongs - and will belong in the future. Beyond that Pacific Northwest is a compressed document of the people I met on my journey and my practice of traveling and journaling in September-October, 2011, from San Francisco, CA to Vancouver, BC.
***FLICKER WARNING - AT THE BEGINNING OF VIDEO***
Performances by: Jason King, James Eliott Hunter, Jonathan Russel
Voice: Kristof Trakal, Dargelos Kersten, Petja Ivanova
Music: Suns of Thyme, Chrisboi Hart, Oliver Reinke
Editor: Kristof Trakal