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 © 1999
9 min 58 sec
35mm/CinemaScope
35mm & 16mm
Sixpack Film (Vienna)
Light Cone (Paris)
Canyon Cinema (San Francisco)
      A young woman, night, an American feature film. She enters a house, a dark corridor, a thriller. While she forces her way into an unknown space together with the viewer, the cinematographic image-producing processes go off the rails all around her. The rooms through which she goes telescope into each other, become blurred, while at the same time the crackling of the cuts and the background noise of the sound track – the sound of the film material itself – becomes louder and more penetrating.
The pace becomes frenetic, the woman is being pursued by invisible opponents, she is pushed against a mirror, walls of glass burst, furniture tilts and the cinematographic apparatus which the heroine begins to attack in blind fury also suffers. The images jump and stutter, the perforation holes tilt into the picture, the sound track collapse inwards in a will o’ the wisp destruction scenario – something which only film can do so beautifully. In ten minutes ‘’Outer Space’’ races through the unsuspected possibilities of cinematographic errors – a masterpiece.


Stefan Grissemann

A woman, terrorized by an invisible and aggressive force, is also exposed to the audience’s gaze, a prisoner in two senses. Outer Space agitates this construction, which is prototypical for gender hierarchies and classic cinema’s viewing regime, and allows the protagonist to turn them upside down. (…) Flickering images, everything crashes, explodes; perforations and the soundtrack are engaged in a violent struggle. (…) The story ends in the woman’s resistant gaze.


Isabella Reichert

Suggesting a convulsive hall of mirrors, Peter Tscherkassky's widescreen tour de force Outer Space reinvents a 1981 Barbara Hershey horror vehicle, leaving the original's crystalline surface intact only to violently shatter its narrative illusion. After Hershey enters a house at nighttime, sounds of crickets, static, and distorted music give way to explosions, screams, and garbled voices. In an eruption of panicked subjectivity, the actress's face multiplies across the screen as the frame is invaded by sprocket holes, an optical soundtrack, and flashes of solarized imagery.


Kristin M. Jones, Closing the American Century:
The Avant-Garde in '99, in: Film Comment Jan./Feb. 2000

Outer Space was made possible through grants from the Federal Ministry for Cultural Affairs and the Government of Lower Austria, Section Art and Science.

Sense of Cinema
Outerspace: The Manufactured Film Of Peter Tscherkassky

Outer Space was shown at the following festivals:

Diagonale 1999 – Festival des österr. Films (A), Preis Innovatives Kino
Austin 1999 – Cinematexas – Int. Short Film+Video+New Media Festival (USA), Gecko Jury Award for Best Short Film und Audience Award Best Film of the Festival
New York 1999 – 37th Film Festival (USA)
Denver 1999 – Int. Film Festival (USA)
Cork 1999 – 44th Int. Film Festival (IR)
Charlottes Ville – Virginia Film Festival 1999 (USA)
Leipzig 1999 – 42. Int. Festival für Dokumentar- u. Animationsfilm (D), Sonderpreis für Innovation
VIPER 1999 – Int. Film Video u. Multimedia Festival Luzern (CH)
New York 1999 – Shorts International Film Festival (USA)
Winterthur 1999 – Kurzfilmtage (CH)
Madrid 1999 – Semana de Cine Experimental (E)
film+arc.graz 1999 (A)
Viareggio 1999 – Europa Cinema & TV Film Festival (I)
New York Expo of Short Film & Video 1999 (USA), Bronze Award for Experimental
Black Maria Festival 2000/New Jersey (USA), Juror's Choice Award
Sundance Film Festival 2000 (USA)
Rotterdam 2000 – 29. Int. Filmfestival (NL)
Clermont-Ferrand 2000 – 12. Festival de Court Metrage (F)
Windsor 2000 – Media City 6 (CDN), Jury Grand Prize
Palermo 2000 – l'immagine leggera – Int. Videoart, Film & Media Festival (I), Zweiter Preis
Ann Arbor 2000 – 38. Film Festival (USA), Best Sound Design
Humboldt 2000 – Int. Film Festival (USA)
Zürich 2000 – VIDEOEXperimental Video & Film Festival (CH)
San Francisco 2000 – Golden Gate Award Int. Film Festival (USA), Golden Spire Award (Cat. New Visions) und Golden Gate Award for Best Short Film
Osnabrück 2000 – Europ. Media Art Festival (D)
Utrecht – Impakt 2000 (NL)
Seattle 2000 – Int. Film Festival (USA), Honourable Mention
Seoul – Indie Forum 2000 (Korea)
Bamberg 2000 – Kurzfilmtage (D), Preis der Filmvorführer
Toronto 2000 – Worldwide Short Film Festival (CAN)
Seine-St.Denis – Côté court 2000 (F)
Hamburg 2000 – 16. Int. Kurzfilm-Festival & No Budget (D)
Grimstad 2000 – The Norwegian Short Film Festival (N)
Barcelona 2000 – Sonar Int. Festival of Advanced Music + Multimedia Arts (E)
Nantucket 2000 – Film Festival (USA)
Teplice 2000 – Int. Art Film Festival Trencianske (SK)
Pesaro 2000 – Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema (I)
Vila do Conde 2000 – 8. Festival Int. de Curtas-Metragens (P)
Sao Paulo 2000 – Short Film Festival (BR)
espoo ciné (FIN)
Vevey – Argos 2000 (CH)
The International Festival of New Film, Split (Kroatien)
19th Uppsala International Short Film Festival (S)

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