Apolonia Sokol in Apolonia, Apolonia (Lea Glob/DOC NYC)

To what extent can we ever truly know people? To what extent can a film preserve parts of them that otherwise might be lost, and what is it that truly makes them unique? These are, of course, questions that will never have concrete answers, but the following two documentaries find different, complimentary ways of addressing them. Both are portraits of women artists that address pertinent challenges regarding survival and self-definition. They also feature a woman who, in different ways, grew up in the theatre. Both recently screened at the annual DOC NYC festival.

Apolonia, Apolonia

Apolonia Sokol was born in 1988 to a French father and a Polish mother, the two of whom owned a Paris theater, Lavoir Moderne Parisien. This was a hub for all kinds of subversive plays, cabaret acts, and other performances, a space that was constantly running into rent troubles. Here Apolonia was surrounded by bohemian figures (artists, writers, performers) who were integral to her upbringing. Though she came and went from Paris after her parents split up (she left with her mother for Denmark), this theatre was her actual home when she caught the attention of young film student Lea Glob.

Apolonia had returned to Paris to study at the École de Beaux-Arts, and was dead set on becoming a painter. Glob (who states that no subject has fascinated her like Apolonia), asked Apolonia if she would be comfortable being filmed, and the answer was yes. What follows is the 13 years of Apolonia continuing to agree, and, consequently, an eventful document of both of their journeys as artists.

Glob strings together intimate footage of Apolonia, providing quiet narration throughout as Apolonia gets ready for a party, works in her studio, curls up in bed, or takes a bath. Sometimes, she is observed in the middle of business meetings, trying to interest gallery owners or other bigwigs in the art world. Other times she is at a gallery in front of her own paintings (here, we usually see both a public and private version of her).

Special attention is paid to how one is forced to present oneself (especially as a woman), thus the many scenes in front of mirrors and private moments of self-consciousness. It’s a trek that begins in Paris, follows Apolonia to America (where she falls under the sway of an arch-capitalist art dealer), then back to Europe, where she finally starts to have some success. (To this viewer, her early paintings from her student days are still the most interesting.) As such, the film expertly captures a varied portrait of someone going through a turbulent time in a variety of situations.

This film stands out as a document of particular people in a particular milieu at a particular time experiencing life as it happens, not retrospectively. Indeed, some of the most memorable moments are not directly about either Apolonia or Glob. Oksana Shachko, a Ukrainian activist who founded the feminist group Femen, lived at the theatre with Apolonia as a political refugee, unable to return to her homeland. Her own attempt to find direction in her life lingers in the background of the action. Oksana died by suicide in 2018, and her presence has incredible impact. She also features as the main figure in several of Apolonia’s paintings.

Vintage footage of female wrestlers from Neirud (DOC NYC)

Neirud

Brazilian filmmaker Fernanda Faya’s Aunt Neirud lived most of her life in the circus, though her beginnings are not as well documented as Apolonia’s. In fact, they are scarcely documented at all. It is this lack of basic information that spurred Faya on to make the film, for Neirud’s story was one abounding with questions. Why was this woman, who was Black, referred to as an “aunt” by the filmmaker’s White family (of Romany and Jewish descent)? How did she come to know Faya’s Grandmother Nely, with whom she worked in the circus for years? And what was her life in the circus like? Faya had the chance to interview Neirud once on film a few months before her death. In search of answers, Faya sets out to piece together what she can about her aunt’s life.

The results are startling. This documentary is, among other things, an astonishing view into Brazilian history. The racial and sexual politics of Neirud and Nely’s time are brought sharply into focus. Neirud was abandoned by her parents, worked as a nanny for a White family, ran away from them at age 12, and later became a circus wrestler. Her stage name was “Gorilla Woman,” chosen to embrace a shameful stereotype of the 1950s. The whole circus world was an area of hidden resistance, where women were allowed to do things (such as wrestle) that they couldn’t get away with elsewhere. After the 1964 military coup, the circus was forced to flee from the big cities to smaller towns. These are just some of the details Faya’s journey unearths.

Especially striking are the tools Faya uses to tell this story. She combines footage from family films (grainy and sometimes unfocused), with still photographs, historical footage, and occasionally with additions filmed by Faya herself, usually with her narration. So, when we see a still photograph, it is likely to be accompanied by some kind of sound, perhaps the roar of an unseen audience. This creates a sense of the limits of our knowledge (how we are forced to piece things together with scanty sources), and to hint at the distance between what these sources reveal and what they cannot. In short, Faya’s approach serves her subject well.

Though Faya does get answers, Neirud is both more and less mysterious by the end. Faya has helped us see how hard she is to forget.