Heart of a Dog

[projekktor id=’21627′]

Heart of a Dog is an essay film directed by American artist Laurie Anderson. It premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and won the Lina Mangiacapre Award at the Venice International Film Festival.

Centering on Anderson’s beloved rat terrier Lolabelle, who died in 2011, HEART OF A DOG is a personal essay that weaves together childhood memories, video diaries, philosophical musings on data collection, surveillance culture and the Buddhist conception of the afterlife, and heartfelt tributes to the artists, writers, musicians and thinkers who inspire her.

Fusing her own witty, inquisitive narration with original violin compositions, hand-drawn animation, 8mm home movies and artwork culled from exhibitions past and present, Anderson creates a hypnotic, collage-like visual language out of the raw materials of her life and art, examining how stories are constructed and told — and how we use them to make sense of our lives.

“It was fun to explode filmmaking like that and watch all the scenes happen simultaneously on different surfaces,” says Anderson. “I’d developed a real aversion to rectangles from looking at screens all the time. I began my career as a sculptor, so fitting everything inside a rectangle has always been frustrating to me.”

Heart of a Dog is rated PG.