Zeva Oelbaum
Founded by Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbühl, Between the Rivers Productions produces character-driven documentary films that explore extraordinary individuals through the intersection of history, culture and film. Zeva and Sabine first worked together in 2008 on Ahead of Time about centenarian journalist Ruth Gruber and their directorial debut was Letters From Baghdad, about Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” This will be much longer. Zeva and Sabine first worked together in 2008 on Ahead of Time about centenarian journalist Ruth Gruber and their directorial debut was Letters From Baghdad, about Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” This will be much longer.
Sabine Krayenbühl,
Between the Rivers Productions produces character-driven documentary films that explore extraordinary individuals through the intersection of history, culture and film. Zeva and Sabine first worked together in 2008 on Ahead of Time about centenarian journalist Ruth Gruber and their directorial debut was Letters From Baghdad, about Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” This will be much longer. Zeva and Sabine first worked together in 2008 on Ahead of Time about centenarian journalist Ruth Gruber and their directorial debut was Letters From Baghdad, about Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” This will be much longer.
Sabine Krayenbühl,
Between the Rivers Productions produces character-driven documentary films that explore extraordinary individuals through the intersection of history, culture and film. Zeva and Sabine first worked together in 2008 on Ahead of Time about centenarian journalist Ruth Gruber and their directorial debut was Letters From Baghdad, about Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” This will be much longer. Zeva and Sabine first worked together in 2008 on Ahead of Time about centenarian journalist Ruth Gruber and their directorial debut was Letters From Baghdad, about Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” This will be much longer.
Sabine Krayenbühl,
Between the Rivers Productions produces character-driven documentary films that explore extraordinary individuals through the intersection of history, culture and film. Zeva and Sabine first worked together in 2008 on Ahead of Time about centenarian journalist Ruth Gruber and their directorial debut was Letters From Baghdad, about Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” This will be much longer. Zeva and Sabine first worked together in 2008 on Ahead of Time about centenarian journalist Ruth Gruber and their directorial debut was Letters From Baghdad, about Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female “Lawrence of Arabia.” This will be much longer.
ABOUT
Obsessed with Light is a meditation on light and the enduring obsession to create. The film pulls back the curtain on Loïe Fuller, a wildly original performer who revolutionized the visual culture of the early 20th century. But it is not a bio-pic. Creating a dialogue between the past and the present, the documentary delves into the astonishing influence Fuller's work has on contemporary culture including artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Taylor Swift, Bill T. Jones, Shakira and William Kentridge, among many others. In the process, the film uncovers commonalities that connect these creative luminaries to Fuller and each other.
The American creator of modern dance, Fuller (1862-1928) created a completely new kind of spectacle which combined dance, fabric and movement. She also pioneered the ingenious use of electricity for the stage, even building a glass floor so that she could be lit from below. Fuller propelled herself into swirling abstractions that made audiences gasp and she immediately understood the importance of protecting her ownership of these innovations. She took out dozens of patents in the U.S., France and UK. Always struggling against a flood of imitators, she sued in court to protect her copyright as early as 1892. Given the recent Supreme Court decision in the dispute between Andy Warhol Foundation and photographer Lynn Goldsmith, Fuller's early battles against copyright infringement are incredibly relevant.
Anyone who has been to a rock concert has seen a modern version of the lighting designs that Fuller patented over a century ago.
Fuller shot to international stardom after performing at the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her rise to fame was intertwined with the very beginning of cinema and her Serpentine dance became an iconic subject for the earliest filmmakers like Georges Méliès and Alice Guy Blaché. She launched Isadora Duncan’s career, promoted Auguste Rodin’s sculpture in the U.S. and consulted with Marie Curie and Thomas Edison to make her costumes glow. Her work influenced the most important artists, performers and thinkers of her day, including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Stéphane Mallarmé and Filippo Marinetti.
Obsessed with Light is a film about transformation. It is about a Midwestern vaudeville performer who performed with Buffalo Bill before becoming a world-famous star of Belle Époque Paris and the embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement with her elaborate productions of ephemeral, shape-shifting abstractions. It's about a woman, described by contemporaries as "odd and badly dressed," who transformed herself into the "Fairy of Light" onstage. It's about a woman who became famous on her own terms– unapologetic about her body type and open about her sexuality. And it's about a visionary artist who disrupted the prevailing notions of dance and the imagined limits of the human body. Lastly, the film is about a lost modernist whose story is crucial to understanding both early cinema and performance.
