Metacíclica

Directed by: Lydia Zimmermann

LYDIA ZIMMERMANN (Barcelona, 1966)

An artist, screenwriter, and filmmaker born in Barcelona to Swiss parents. She holds a Master’s in Artistic Transdisciplinarity from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

Her first short film, Biorxa (1995), is part of the collection at the Barcelona Center of Contemporary Culture (CCCB). She has written and directed other short films, including El silenci de Robert Capa, House of Hope, and Wake (Best Short Film at the Bilbao International Film Festival). Lydia co-directed and co-wrote the feature film Aro Tolbukhin: dins la ment de l'assassí, which won Best Screenplay and Best Film at the Ariel Awards in 2002. This Spanish-Mexican co-production blends various cinematic genres. Between 2003 and 2006, she directed two TV movies for Catalan TV (TV3): La Dona de gel (2003) and Segona pell (RAI, 2005). As a documentary filmmaker and producer, her work includes La Mudança del Cercle (2009), Felix & Nati (2011), and Maria Conversa (2017), a co-production between Artisan Films GmbH and Testamento Producciones. From 2011 to 2013, she lived in Haiti, where she worked at Cine Institute, the country’s first film school. During this time, she combined teaching with producing Dobles de llum (CONCA and Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica, 2014), a film essay in the form of video-notes that deconstructs cinematic language.

In 2013, she moved to Zurich, the city of her ancestors, to teach at the European Film Actor School (EFAS). She also works as a cinematographer for other artists, including Kaspar König, Futura Foundation, and Ursula Biemann. From 2016 to 2019, she created La Trilogia de Therese, a filmic work inspired by a historical character from L’enfosament de la Medusa (Géricault, 1819), which includes Horitzó en Equilibri (VR, Muvers Festival, 2015), Notes pour un Radeau Africain (Burkina, 2017), and Therese in Bits (Helmhaus Museum, 2019). For this trilogy, Lydia collaborated with immigrants, students, and non-professional actors. Ayenan (2020) is a film installation and documentary produced in collaboration with Ñambi Rimai, the Indigenous Media Collective of southern Colombia (Ars Electronica, 2023). During the COVID-19 lockdown, she collaborated on One(Nine), writing and directing the short film Pan Demia, produced by Punk Films (Blow-up Arthouse Filmfest Chicago, Venice Shorts, and Berlin International Art Film Festival).

Lydia works as a screenwriter for various Catalan production companies, including Eddie Saeta s.a.u., Ralda World PC, and Principal Segona PC. Her latest commercial work is the screenplay for Un Cel de Plom (Dir. Miquel Romans, 2023), a biopic on Neus Català. She is currently developing Gel, her next fiction feature, and Sense Regles, a screenplay born from the Metacyclical photography project.
www.lydiazimmermann.com