Man to Man

1930s Germany, Ella has to find a way to make ends meet after the death of her husband who was a crane operator. She dons his clothes and does his old job. With a rabbit paw in her pants, Ella, now known as Max, enters the world of men – “beer, schnaps and all the rest”. She becomes entirely fascinated by the way men behave when no women are around. Ella decides to keep her disguise and serves as a soldier during World War II. After the war, she works on a farm and at a factory, all as a man.

Pre-film

Prior to Man to Man, you will see The Absent Presence by Hussein Chalayan (2005, 15’), a video installation created for the Turkish pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, in which Tilda Swinton extracts DNA from the clothing of unknown individuals and explores the connections between identity, biology and environment. Swinton hand-picked a short film, either from her rich oeuvre or from Eye’s collection, to precede all feature films.