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‘Boundaries between reality and dream are blurry.’
Seeking a ‘normal’ relationship after several soured romances left him depressed, Dirk eventually found support and stability in a relationship with a rather unusual new partner: a life-sized and lifelike sex doll named Jenny. Dream Girl profiles Dirk as he explores the details of his unconventional love. Although on some level he knows that ‘her silicone body isn’t alive, of course’, he seems to think of Jenny in a way that wilfully wavers between reality and fantasy. Although Dirk’s loneliness and isolation is palpable – the film itself barely leaves his home – it’s also clear that he’s somehow practising how to relate to other humans, however unsettling his methods might be. This remarkably wrought, haunting film by the Swiss director Oliver Schwarz asks vexing questions about what love can be and what it means to choose the kind of intimacy that Dirk has, while offering no easy answers.
Director: Oliver Schwarz
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Wellbeing
A tender poem doubles as a guide to sitting comfortably in one’s own company
3 minutes
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Values and beliefs
How a God-fearing Jewish woman found atheism – and bacon – in her later years
9 minutes
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War and peace
Before he leaves to go to war, Artem, 18, says goodbye to the man who raised him
12 minutes
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Art
A mindbending trip that summons the forgotten women of surrealism
17 minutes
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Family life
A son of China’s former one-child policy remembers the sibling he never had
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Social psychology
A harrowing account of a 1970 ‘leadership seminar’ spotlights self-help’s dark side
11 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
For Ruskin, words couldn’t capture nature’s palette. So here it is in black and white
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Wellbeing
Wry animations expose the gap between anxious aspiration and real life
5 minutes
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Mood and emotion
Alone on a small island in Belgrade, a father grieves his daughter in quiet solitude
12 minutes