Terre Thaemlitz – Give Up On Hopes And Dreams

Content warning: a speech in this film mentions assault and rape In music media, context and backstory are often conflated as the storyteller attempts to organise and explain the circumstances by which an artist and their work came to be. “For me, the worst nightmare would be ending up with a film that’s somehow a construction of an artistic figure that had this singularity and a growth path, if it started with photos of childhood and then talking to different people in chronological order about when they knew me,“ Terre Thaemlitz, the mind behind monikers like DJ Sprinkles, . and ., tells director Patrick Nation in Give Up On Hopes And Dreams. For Nation, executing the documentary meant challenging many of his filmmaking instincts. With help from story editor Lawrence English, he had to move aside urges to shape the narrative in a linear or overly conclusive way. Participants 辻愛子 / Tsuji Aiko Dont Rhine 吉田泉 / Izumi Y