Meeting of Two Queens

Encuentro entre dos Reinas

A film by Cecilia Barriga

Spain | 1991 | 14 minutes | Color | DVD | Order No. 99304

SYNOPSIS

In this witty, luminous film, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich star in the roles of their lives—cast as lovers by Chilean video artist Barriga. Queen Christina meets the Scarlet Empress; Anna Karenina and Blonde Venus transcend tragedy. This beguiling film links the queens of the silver screen through motifs such as the cigarette and a circuitry of meaningful gazes and gestures. Clips from their signature roles are remounted in silent film style vignettes to tell a burgeoning tale of desire and destiny.

PRESS

“A clever hunt for lesbian longings in old movies.”

Bill Stamets Chicago Sun-Times

“The movie we’ve been waiting for!”

Monica Dorenkamp Outweek

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

  • NY Int’l Festival of Lesbian and Gay Film
  • Feminale Women’s Film Festival, Germany
  • Montreal Women’s Film and Video Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Cecilia Barriga

Cecilia Barriga is a Chilean-Spanish film director. She left home at 19 to study sound and image at the Complutense University of Madrid. In 1983, she began her career in cinema, and in 1984 completed her university degree. In 1994, she moved to New York to further her studies in screenwriting and video art at Columbia University. Her 1991 film MEETING OF TWO QUEENS was shown at Montreal Women's Film and Video Festival and New York International Festival of Gay and Lesbian Film. The film served as Barriga’s attempt to re-edit and cut various scenes from films featuring Hollywood stars Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich in order to create a space for lesbian identity politics and identity formation. It offers an alternative viewing of these famous Hollywood stars which effectively re-envisions them as icons of the burgeoning gay and lesbian movement of the early 1990s. She directed her first feature film TIME'S UP! in New York City and it premiered at the Donostia-San Sebastián Film Festival. (01/20)

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