In His Bold Gaze

A closeted gay man, his mother, and his lover are caught in a cannibal docudrama, precarious in their relationship between what is on and off screen.

In His Bold Gaze delves into the life of Armin Meiwes, a computer repair technician from Rotenburg, Germany, who in 2001 devoured Bernd Brandes, an engineer from Berlin. Departing from documentary, theatrical, and archival practises, the film re-enacts the infamous case by connecting it to televised and home video cultures from the late 90s.

  • Bernardo Zanotta
    Director
    Quintal (2016), Heart of Hunger (2018)
  • Bernardo Zanotta
    Writer
    Quintal (2016), Heart of Hunger (2018)
  • Manon Bovenkerk
    Producer
    Cloud Forest
  • Leandro Lefa
    Key Cast
  • Dani Ploeger
    Key Cast
  • Hinke-Ann Eleveld
    Key Cast
    Heart of Hunger (2018)
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    20 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2020
  • Production Budget:
    8,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Netherlands
  • Country of Filming:
    Germany, Netherlands
  • Language:
    English, French, German
  • Shooting Format:
    DV
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Queer Lisboa
    Lissabon
    Portugal
    September 18, 2020
    World Premiere
Distribution Information
  • near/by film
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Bernardo Zanotta

Bernardo Zanotta is a Brazilian filmmaker and visual artist based in Amsterdam. His projects span across disciplines, ranging from film and theatre to installation and writing. He holds a BA in Moving Image from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie where he is currently a research fellow. His films have been exhibited internationally at art venues as well as screened and awarded at festivals such as Locarno, Queer Lisboa and Vilnius, amongst others.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In His Bold Gaze is the second part of Trilogia Canibal, a series of short-films which thematically explore the relation between cannibalism and homosexuality whilst playing with notions of queer shame, performativity and anthropophagy (the ancient practice of eating human beings).

The film uses cinematic cliches to digress into the tale of Armin Meiwes - computer repair technician from Rotenburg, Germany - who in 2001 found a partner willing to be devoured at the internet forum Cannibal Café. In re-telling Meiwes’ story through an experimental approach, I attempt to make connections between the case and 90’s video culture, engaging with documentary theatre and archival research.

At a visual level, In His Bold Gaze explores the aesthetics of home video through the use of consumer-grade, readily available video cameras. Armin Meiwes himself was an amateur documentarist, and his mother’s old house in Rotenburg was the stage where he would capture fragments of his life on tape. These video tapes belong to the German authorities, and the only proof of their existence are a series of screenshots leaked on the internet after his arrest.

Meiwes’ perversion is illustrated by his Oedipal relation with his mother. Through a reading of the case under the lens of Freudian psychoanalysis, one can further connect his story to the theoretical interest in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, often centred on a male hero to whom the maternal superego blocks access to a ‘normal’ sexual relation.

Besides deconstructing Armin Meiwes’ narrative, the film exposes the process of cinematic adaptation in itself, by combining formal exploration with behind the scenes material and emotional theatrics; such as the inclusion of Racine’s Phaedra as an adjacent narrative to this well known cannibal drama.