Films by Valentin Riedl

Germany 2020, 81 min
by Valentin Riedl

Carlotta cannot recognize faces, not even her own. For her, human faces are no bastion of trust, but places of fear and confusion. She is one of the 1% of all people whose part of the brain responsible for facial recognition does not work properly. With his film LOST IN FACE, neuroscientist Valentin Riedl travels through Carlotta’s universe, full of anthropomorphic animals, lucid dreams and bumpy false paths. He peels back her charming, idiosyncratic solutions that she employs to be able to join the masses of human conformity, until she one day decides to build a ship and leave her fellow humans. Her never-ending search for answers leads her to art—and thus an avenue to her own face and back to humanity. “As a neuroscientist and filmartist, Valentin merges abstract science with the artistic form of film to open a new world to the spectator” Wim Wenders

Germany 2018, 5 min
by Valentin Riedl, Frederic Schuld

When Carlotta looks in the mirror, she doesn't recognize the image reflected back at her. This beautifully animated portrait explores the confusion that face blindness causes for a young child trying to make sense of her world, and ultimately, how this rare neurological condition gave Carlotta the gift of artistic expression. (hotDOCS, Eileen Arandiga)