In addition to exhibition and workshop components, the recently opened International Festival for Arts and Media Yokohama 2009 (also known as CREAM) features a monthlong screening program of international feature-length and short films as well as prize-winning submissions to the CREAM Competition, which was open to works in all moving-image genres by amateur and seasoned artists alike.

Born in 1962, the Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist is among the headliners of the screening program, which included the Nov. 1 Asian premiere of her first feature film, "Pepperminta" (2009). Rist is known for making sensual, psychedelic videos and installations that explore how media shapes perception of the human body and its relationship to social and natural environments. "Pepperminta" builds on the artist's previous work, following the eponymous title character as she uses color — paint, flowers, fruit, food dye and even menstrual blood — to break down social constraints and upend authority.

Rist has had several exhibitions in Japan, including solo shows at Tokyo's Shiseido Gallery and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and the Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art in Marugame, Kagawa Prefecture. The Japan Times met with her in Yokohama to discuss her transition from video to film and her use of the human body as a theme in her work.

Why did you want to make a film after all these years of making videos and installations? I don't know anymore. While I was making the film, I often thought, "Why Pippi, why are you doing this?" It was like an endless story to finish it.

I liked the challenge of using a form that can go beyond fine art. Often people who follow art think they are already very enlightened, that they know what's right and wrong, even if they actually don't. So I was interested in speaking with people who normally don't have the ritual of going to art exhibitions, of going to the "enlightened circle" — sorry if that sounds a bit cynical.

But in reality it will be difficult for the film to achieve that goal because it will likely end up in specialty cinemas. It would be great if it ever makes it to TV. Then I'll be going into people's living rooms and I'm very interested to see whether they're open to a different language or whether they'll just pop over to the next channel.

Did you ever feel that film's narrative format or working with a large crew could be restricting? In my artworks I'm extremely free to concentrate on philosophical and poetic expression, and in film it's all about telling the story. I'm not sure whether I was able to balance that effectively, so I now question myself: Should I have gone all the way, and made more compromises? I'm not sure if it was worth it to be somewhere between liberty and complete service.

But it was a very good experience to work with professional equipment. In video, because of budget constraints, you work in a small group or alone. In film you're paying for the crew, the actors, the line producer, and they're all super- professional. In terms of how I wanted to develop the formal or dramatic aspects of my work, I felt film was the only possibility.

One of the main themes in "Pepperminta" is overcoming fear. Early in the film, Pepperminta is told, "Always do what you daren't and see what happens." Then along the way she liberates other people from their own fears. But in that sense, she also evokes a messiah figure. Was that intentional? Pepperminta is the hero of the film and I understand that there is the danger of turning her into a messiah figure. But I wanted to make her fairytale-like, and not show her ambivalence.

It also relates to Christian culture, in which our messiah is tortured, strung up on the cross. That construction was invented to keep us small. They say, "Life is only a test, the real life comes afterward and if you're poor and under my thumb, it's OK." That mentality is used to control people. Or the use of shame, the idea that we are sinful from the birth, all these ideas. I thought it's necessary to produce 1,000 different messiahs to overcome the one messiah, and "Pepperminta" is just a step in that direction.

So are other figures in your works also messiahs? What about, for example, your two-channel projection "Ever is Over All" (1997), which juxtaposes detailed footage of flowers with scenes of a woman walking down the street smashing car windows with a flower-shaped pipe? "Ever is Over All" was a symbol of action: When we break the rules, the punishment is often smaller than we expect. But doing so requires courage, and fantasy. It takes time to invent new modes of behavior. When I was making "Ever," I already knew that I wanted to do a feature film, so the work was a test. It's very closely linked to "Pepperminta."

How about the use of the human body in your art ? In "Pepperminta," there is a scene where the title character strips naked, performs a handstand and collects her menstrual blood as it trickles down her body into a chalice. I am looking for a balance between existing inside of the body and outside of the body. For me the body is the philosophical symbol of our existence. Why are we here, where do we go — we can never imagine "not being."

So if I work with the body, it's the philosophical human, our philosophical question. We are always lonely in our bodies. Enclosed within our skin, we are isolated even in sex, and it is only through empathy that we can overcome the loneliness.

And when I use women, they symbolize men also.

So in that sense your art does not necessarily have a feminist message? No. If you make a work using a naked man, no one calls it "machismo art" or whatever. In Western society, the man is considered to represent the norm and the woman is exceptional, so if we see the image of a woman, we are conditioned to think that she represents only other women. But for me the female body includes the male. You wouldn't look at Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" and say it only represents men; it stands in for all of humanity.

Politically I'm a feminist, but I'm sure you are too. You are probably also supportive of equal pay and equal opportunities for women. It's just that in my private life, I don't have to be a feminist because I generally associate with open-minded people. I think differences of character are bigger than those of gender.

That's interesting to hear, because many reviews that mention "Ever" describe the flower the woman uses to break the car windows as a phallus, but to me it looked like it was just a flower. Was it meant to be a phallus? Absolutely not! Why is everything that's beautiful a phallus? It's bizarre, but I can't control what people see. Of course a flower can also be a sexual symbol, but in that case it could also be a clitoris. I do see some floral aspects in the phallus, but not every flower is a phallus. Both are nice.