The Dutch filmmaker Marthe Peters lives and works in Ghent, Belgium after graduating from the city’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2023. Her graduation film Baldilocks premiered in Berlinale Shorts and went on to screen at festivals including Courtisane, Karlovy Vary, Seminci Valladolid, Lago Film Fest and at the Barbican in London. Her work depicts her daily reality in an intimate way, focusing on the banal as something important and worthy as individuals search for solace and care for one another.
What was your starting point for „Henry Is a Girl Who Likes to Sleep“?
The starting point for Henry was my relationship with my cat, Henry. I never understood the attachment people had to their pets until I adopted her, and I wanted to make a film about the different facets of living in such close proximity with an animal you love dearly. Very quickly, I began reading critical texts about the idea of “having” pets. The film ultimately grew out of the contradiction between living with and loving Henry, while at the same time morally questioning the ways in which people generally treat animals and the attitudes they hold towards pets.
Do you have a favorite moment in the film? Which one and why this one in particular?
To give a slightly odd answer, I’m very fond of the end credits, because I had nothing to do with them. I’m used to doing everything myself in the filmmaking process, and this was my first experience working with a budget and a producer. The credits were beautifully made by Maaike Beuten, with wonderful music by the Belgian musician maya dhondt.
What do you like about the short form?
I love working associatively, following an image or intuition and seeing where it leads me, and the short form brings a focus to that process that I really value. This film in particular is the shortest I’ve made in years, and it was a real challenge to bring all its layers together and do them justice, especially the visual experiments. I appreciate how a successfully compact film can stand in opposition to the dominance of big, expensive box-office productions.
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PRESS / REVIEWS / INTERVIEWS
„Marthe Peters nähert sich Henry und dem Schlaf auf behutsame, ja, poetische Weise. Die Verknüpfung des unterschiedlichen Bildmaterials, Editing, fast alles hat Marthe Peters allein oder mit Leon Decock gemacht, stellt einen eigensinnigen Film her.“
review in NIGHT OUT @ BERLIN
„It feels a natural sequel to her previous work about disease, finding a way to talk about self-care through cinematic means — including hand-drawn animations, close-ups of snails, many cute cat images — that dispel the conventional and move towards the deeply personal.“
review in Journey Into Cinema
„…and there were so many lovely discoveries: Marthe Peters’s tender meditation on fragility, closeness, wonder, and love of pets Henry Is a Girl Who Likes to Sleep…“
mention in Romania Insider
Berlinale Shorts 