Perseidas

August night. Lights streak through the forest, gliding gently over treetops and faces dancing in the darkness; it breaks on the still surface of the water, where the gurgling of frogs rises and falls. There is a rhythm to the movement of the light: the Perseids – a meteor shower that comes from the direction of the constellation Perseus – light up the dark sky for several summer nights every year in August.

However, in this cinematic narrative, Perseus remains on the sidelines. Instead, Medusa appears in many forms as a group of young women moves through the forest, their laughter breaking through the pitch-black darkness. Only fragmentarily recognizable in the beams of their flashlights, they dance, play, and remain silent. Their fingertips dip in the water; cigarettes glow and burn out; loving glances meet, reflected in the dim of night.

Shot entirely at night on analogue film, Perseidas is a sensitive staging of light in which exuberance and precision exist simultaneously. With moving intimacy, filmmaker Natalia del Mar Kašik sheds light on the importance of female community, capturing the continuity of essential connections – between film and light, and between girlhood and friendship.

And while the shooting stars burn up in Perseidas, there takes place both an exploration of what is permanent and a break away from it. In the reflection of the starry sky, the legend of Perseus is rewritten, and female collectivity is celebrated in the face of social invisibility and devaluation. Then, very quietly, Medusa giggles at the power of gaze and perspective. (Lisa Heuschober)

(Translation: John Wojtowicz)