The Future Is Behind You

tells a fictitious story composed of film reels from an anonymous family archive from the 1930s in Europe. It is a reconstruction that emphasises the gender development of two sisters who play, race, fight, kiss and grow up together in the shadow of a looming war. As always, Abigail Child uses found footage to get the story behind the story. In this case, there are at least three levels: the home movie in which a preternaturally happy family from 1930s Germany poses for the camera; the historical moment which undermines the image and serves as the real motive for the action; and the development of the girls' sexual identity. The innocent, "free" elder sister transforms into a socially bruised "bride," whereas the younger one irrepressibly develops from a tomboy to an embarrassed, diffident adult. At once biography and fiction, history and psychology, exposes gestures to explore the seduction of speculative narrative, in an attempt to bridge the gap between private and public histories.