World Premiere of Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival

Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon, a remarkable dive into the mind of one of the world's most visionary and uncompromising artists, will have its world premiere at the 76th Berlinale in the Panorama section. The film is an intimate portrait of the Turner Prize and Venice Biennale-winning Scottish artist Douglas Gordon, set almost entirely within his Berlin studio, blurring the boundary between reality and performance and the changing relationship between filmmaker and protagonist, raising the question of who is actually making the film and expressing how art can both sustain and devour a life.

I was privileged to be able to edit this fantastic work, which offered the opportunity to smash together Martin Radich's reactive up-close cinematography with Gordon's vast video-art archive and experiment to create a energetic mixture of vérité conversation and associative poetic visuals, at once deeply personal and operatically existential, dreamlike and raw. During editing it called to mind everything from the freehanded claustrophobia and  naturalism of Grey Gardens, the confrontational and performative conversation of Portrait of Jason, the metacinematic psychic reality of My Winnipeg, and the immersive media time dilation of the Beckett play Krapp's Last Tape. The film blasts past so many of the tired tropes of artist documentaries to really inhabit the world, inside and out, of Douglas Gordon. It also features a killer soundtrack by CJ Mirra, peppered with music from Douglas' studio playlists.

The film continues my collaboration with director Finlay Pretsell after Time Trial:
 
“Over the years we have had hours of endless conversations,” said Pretsell. ”From the very first second it was obvious that Douglas Gordon lives and breathes art. There is no downtime. No vacation. No other pastime. His whole raison d’être is to create extraordinary pieces of art. The admiration I have is unequivocal.”

Autlook Filmsales have come onboard for international sales. This is what they had to say about the film:

Stephanie Fuchs, CEO of Autlook said: “Douglas Gordon By Douglas Gordon is one of those rare documentaries that feels at once personal, daring, and refreshingly direct. Buyers are in for a truly unique ride — and what better place to celebrate the premiere than Berlin.”