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Jimmy Gimferrer. Photo by Jan Baka.The bold films of Catalonian filmmaker Albert Serra—Birdsong (2008) and Story of My Death (2013), along works commissioned by museums or galleries, the cross-over of documentary and essay, The Lord Worked Wonders in Me (2011), and the unorthodox and experimental 14-episode “television series” El Noms de Crist (2010)— share the same man behind the camera, French-born, Spanish-based cinematographer Jimmy Gimferrer, often billed as Albert Serra's cameraman.Gimferrer studied at Arts and Design school Escola Massana in Barcelona, and, similarly to Serra, is an autodidact. Their film career trajectories have roots to Serra's first film, Crespià (2003)—though Gimferrer did not grab the camera before Birdsong, for which he won a Gaudí Award—carrying the tasks of art director, production designer and actor in the director's second film, Honour of the Knights (2006). The penetrative and concentrating gaze of Gimferre's lens has also served other filmmakers, most notably José Maria...

Jimmy Gimferrer. Photo by Jan Baka.The bold films of Catalonian filmmaker Albert Serra—Birdsong (2008) and Story of My Death (2013), along works commissioned by museums or galleries, the cross-over of documentary and essay, The Lord Worked Wonders in Me (2011), and the unorthodox and experimental 14-episode “television series” El Noms de Crist (2010)— share the same man behind the camera, French-born, Spanish-based cinematographer Jimmy Gimferrer, often billed as Albert Serra's cameraman.Gimferrer studied at Arts and Design school Escola Massana in Barcelona, and, similarly to Serra, is an autodidact. Their film career trajectories have roots to Serra's first film, Crespià (2003)—though Gimferrer did not grab the camera before Birdsong, for which he won a Gaudí Award—carrying the tasks of art director, production designer and actor in the director's second film, Honour of the Knights (2006). The penetrative and concentrating gaze of Gimferre's lens has also served other filmmakers, most notably José Maria...

Albert Serra's Story of My Death is playing on Mubi in most countries in the world through December 14, 2015.Two different stories (or, more precisely, two different philosophical epochs) coincide at a boarding house in the Carpathian woods in Albert Serra's rewardingly bizarre Story of My Death. In the first, an aging aristocrat eventually revealed to be none other than Casanova himself (played by Vicenç Altaió) lolls around in sumptuous Swiss chambers, gleefully indulging his every epicurean appetite—munching on seeds and sweets, exploring the regions under a maiden's gown, pelting his servant with arch pensées, and giggling at the chamber pot he's just strenuously filled. In the second, restricted interiors give way to vast Balkan vistas, the roaming grounds of a Dracula (Eliseu Huertas) who looks like a Latvian Orthodox elder and sounds like a Sixties guru. ("We go way beyond," he tells a curious lass about his castle happenings.

★★★☆☆ Winner of the Golden Leopard at this year's Locarno Film Festival, Albert Serra's mischievous period drama Story of my Death (2013) depicts the tempestuous epoch where Enlightenment gave way to the passions and frivolity of Romanticism. Falsely marketed as an encounter between Casanova and Dracula, this playful but narratively benign riff on history's most infamous Lothario's memoir is a Renaissance road trip into an opaque crevasse of depravity. An unhurried and painstakingly crafted labyrinth rich in lurid insinuation, we follow Casanova (an ageing Marquis played by Vicenç Altaió) as he gets to know his new manservant.

Leaving the security of his opulent French château, the pair embarks on a dreary road trip through Northern Europe. However, as their journey progresses Casanova finds himself moving further away from the comfort of his frivolous aristocratic lifestyle before finally encountering the esoteric and imposing figure of Count Dracula (Eliseu Huertas). A man lost...