Miami-based FiGa Films has picked up worldwide sales on Andrés Kaiser’s found-footage doc “Time Theorem” (“Teorema de Tiempo”), which will have its world premiere at DOK.Fest München on May 8.
Doc will also receive a market screening at the Cannes Marché du Film on May 18.
“We could not believe that ‘Time Theorem’ was a documentary when we first watched it,” said FiGa Films CEO, Sandro Fiorin, adding: “Fiction could only hope for such a twisted story.”
“Andrés is supremely talented, the way he and his producer put this film together is truly remarkable. We are lucky to be part of the team,” he continued.
According to Kaiser, the doc relates the story of his grandparents and their lives as amateur filmmakers between Mexico and Switzerland from the 1940s to the 1980s. “It’s a story that reflects on how we use images as a tool to build our own personality, in contrast to the relentless passage of time and the tragedies that it carries with it,” he said.
In his director’s statement, Kaiser goes on to describe “Time Theorem” as “a film essay that portrays the unstoppable passage of life through hundreds of film reels and thousands of photographs created by my grandparents Anita Schlittler and Arnoldo Kaiser, who, through their film camera, captured their obsessions, myths and fantasies throughout the 20th century.”
“For me, the making of this film is a way of unifying an unfinished portrait of my family and myself; an assembly of someone else’s memory with intention of telling a story that resonates strongly in the human heart,” he added.
Kaiser, who studied film editing in Madrid and screenwriting in Mexico City, is developing “The Spring of the Anchorites,” an archival documentary that recreates the psychoanalyst experience that took place inside a Benedictine monastery in Cuernavaca, Mexico during the ‘60s. He’s also working on his next genre pic, “Precious Blood,” a tale of demonic possession inside a female convent in 18th century colonial Mexico. His debut feature “Feral” took home the Fipresci critics award at the Los Cabos Film Festival and won him best director prize at RIFF Oslo.
FiGa Films’ other pick-ups in 2022 include animated short “The Year of the Radio,” by Samuel Kishi Leopo, whose previous pics “Los Lobos” and “We Are Mari Pepa” also form part of FiGa Films’ catalog. FiGa also nabbed worldwide sales rights to Diana Cardozo’s coming-of-age drama “Estacion Catorce” (“Station 14”) this year.
The Munich International Documentary Film Festival (DOK.Fest München) runs May 4-22. Cannes’ Marché du Film runs May 17-25.
