The Girl and the Spider

a film by Ramon and Silvan Zürcher
2021, 99 minutes

Poster

Synopsis

As her roommate Lisa prepares to move out of their apartment, Mara contemplates the end of an era. Furniture is moved, walls painted, cupboards built. Amid all the hustle and bustle, secret longings and desires come to the surface and coalesce around the roommates as well as around Lisa’s mother Astrid, the movers, the girls’ old neighbors, the neighbors’ cat, Lisa’s new neighbor and an ever-expanding cast of characters. Day turns into night and one final party in the apartment. When the last box is moved, the fragments of their lives remain.

The Zürcher brothers compose a poetic panopticon of forms of human relationships that is at once a study of everyday life, a fairytale and a psychological portrait of a brittle world. Following The Strange Little Cat, The Girl and the Spider is the second installment in a trilogy about human togetherness, a ballad about the need for closeness and the pain of separation.

Reviews

Critic’s Pick! "Wonderfully discombobulating…Demands and rewards repeat viewings; it’s different, and more entrancing, every time."
- Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times

"A symphony of separation and solitude."
- Allan Hunter, Screen International

"Deliciously ambiguous…[The] Zürchers’ movies are like prisms, capturing the things people do when they think no one’s watching…and when they desperately wish they were."
-Peter DeBruge, Variety

"Thrilling, thrilling cinema. Order and chaos fighting it out at the level of form and content."
-Erika Balsom, The Film Comment Podcast

Press Materials

High Res Stills and Press Kit
Press Release

Where to watch

Opens April 8 in NYC

Playdates

Apr 8: Film at Lincoln Center - New York, NY
Apr 8: Metrograph - New York, NY
Apr 13: Acropolis Cinema - Los Angeles, CA
Apr 15: Laemmle Royal - Los Angeles, CA
Apr 15-24: Northwest Film Forum - Seattle, WA
Apr 15: a/perture cinema - Winston-Salem, NC
Apr 15: Cinema Pubic - Montreal, QC
Apr 15: The Clairidge - Montclair, NJ
Apr 15: Gateway Film Center - Columbus, OH
Apr 16-25: Time & Space Ltd. - Hudson, NY
Apr 18-25: The Cinematheque - Vancouver, BC
Apr 22: The Belcourt - Nashville, TN
Apr 22: Acme Screening Room - Lambertville, NJ
Apr 23-24: Oklahoma City Museum of Art - Oklahoma City, OK
Apr 29: Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago, IL
Apr 29: Savoy Theater - Montpelier, VT
Apr 29-30: Union Cinema, UWM - Milwaukee, WI

May 6-15: The Ryder - Bloomington, IN
May 27-30: Guild Cinema - Albuquerque, NM

June 1: Avalon Theatre - Washington, DC
June 3 & 5: Cleveland Cinematheque - Cleveland, OH
June 3: Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center - Lincoln, NE

Aug 6 & 8: Austin Film Society - Austin, TX
Aug 12-14: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - Houston, TX

Festivals & Awards

Winner - Encounters Award, Best Director - Berlin International Film Festival
Winner - FIPRESCI Prize - Berlin International Film Festival
Official Selection - New York Film Festival

Trailer

Related Films

The Strange
Little Cat

Ramon Zürcher