When Lisa decides to rent her own apartment and starts moving house, her roommate Mara doesn't know what to do with herself. She wanders unhappily from one room to another and watches the move instead of helping, sometimes even getting in the way. Were the girls actually just roommates, just friends? The cold sore, which Mara first develops, and then Lisa breaks out with, says otherwise. Done in the Zürcher brothers’ signature style, which has captivated festival audiences around the world, the second part of the filmmakers’ trilogy about human intimacy abounds in sexual tension and unexplained mysteries.
"What we enjoy when watching films is when they’re not too predictable. We like characters but also plots that lead you to places that you don’t foresee at the beginning, which surprise you. Talking about ambiguity, with me, for instance, what I like are characters that don’t have one specific trait: they may be kind to others, but they could also incorporate monstrous or cruel sides. Our style, in a way, is determined by control – for instance, our controlled character movements, or the way the props are staged – but there’s also this beauty in chaos." (Silvan Zürcher)
Ramon in Silvan Zürcher
Twins Ramon and Silvan Zürcher, a filmmaking duo, were born in 1982 in Aarberg, Switzerland. The Girl and the Spider is their second joint project, although Ramon is credited as director and Silvan as co-director and producer. Their debut feature, The Strange Little Cat, premiered at Berlinale, and screened in Toronto, Cannes, Vienna and New York.