This year, the film Alien is forty years old. Even though film director Alexandre O. Philippe did not realise this until he'd already spent nine months working on his new film, we can always celebrate through his documentary Memory - The Origins of Alien.
It is the Swiss-born director's second visit to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which he enjoys for its energetic audiences. He showed 78/52, his analysis of the famous murder-in-theshower scene in the film Psycho, here for the first time. "I am interested in the moments in film that transcend the film itself. After the shower scene, then, I focussed on the chestburster scene. However, I couldn't approach it in the same way," the director described, adding that he spent one-third of the time thinking about how to grasp the theme. His work went quickly once he decided to talk about myth and collective unconsciousness. Another thing that helped was that the widows of screenwriter Dan O'Bannon and artist H. R. Giger granted him access to their husbands' archives.
The film, which reveals the backdrop to the film's shooting, contexts and sources, was shown just before the screening of Alien itself, which Philippe has seen countless times. However, as the director found out for himself, a number of members of the audience in Karlovy Vary were watching it for the very first time. "This always makes me happy," he said.
Philippe is now preparing a documentary for the autumn, this time about The Exorcist. "William Friedkin saw my previous film and invited me to lunch," the director disclosed. "The film stems from our six-day dialogue about The Exorcist, and explores that horror unusally, through fine art," the filmmaker stated by way of a teaser.
