Gonda is an art film project directed by Ursula Mayer and written by Maria Fusco. The film is informed by Ayn Rand’s 1937 play Ideal, and uses sounds, images and text to create a shimmering and disconcerting filmic environment. We worked with Mayer and Fusco to create a book counterpart to the film which would extend and explore some of the ideas within the original.
The book is a ciné-roman or film-novel, which explores different ways of presenting a polyvocal film in print. The design replicates the seductive way in which the images, scenes and stills flow into each other throughout the film, and the soothing and authoritative tone of the voiceover is translated through quietly assertive typography and a keen sense of rhythm. Like the film it sits alongside, Gonda the book resists interpretation by logical means, but creates an alluring atmosphere.
