Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
‘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
video
Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes
video
Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes
video
History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes
video
Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
video
Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes
video
Anthropology
For an Amazonian female shaman, ayahuasca ceremonies are a rite and a business
30 minutes
video
Sports and games
Havana’s streets become racetracks in this exhilarating portrait of children at play
5 minutes
video
Spirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes
video
Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes