GER/SRB 2019, D: Angela Schanelec, A: Maren Eggert, Jakob Lassalle, Clara Möller, Franz Rogowski, Lilith Stangenberg, Alan Williams, Jirka Zett, Dane Komljen, 105’, german OV with engl. Subtitles
Is it possible for a feature film to authentically deal with death? What does it mean when an actor pretends to be mortally ill – is this ethically and aesthetically acceptable or is it merely a lie? Can images convey a truth that is not personal but universal? In her new film, Angela Schanelec has her protagonist Astrid express these problems directly. Astrid has lost her husband and the father of two mutual children. A friend of her treating this very subject in his artistic work, gets accused by her of having overstepped the boundary of presentability. Schanelec takes a different approach: like Yasujirō Ozu’s silent film “I was born, but”, which the title of Schanelec’s film follows, her film narrates via absent things, omissions, the before and after of dramatic happenings. What can be seen is the condition of the characters. Impressions can be found in their physical presence – dirt, wounds, illness, posture and gestures. The actors’ surface turns their personality concrete. Bodies isolate themselves. Interactions provoke eruptions. Fears turn outward. Touch soothes. The actors embrace their role physically instead of performing it in a naturalistic and realistic way. Schanelec does not care about any enactment of fate. She shows a snapshot of everyday melancholy. Her images’ strict concept uncovers truth and enables the viewer to feel sympathy by understanding.
12 April, 8 pm – Luru Kino at the Spinnerei – € 6,5 (5,5 red.)
Excerpt
Ted Fendt’s narrow oeuvre represents an distinct narrative in contemporary US independent cinema: he realized the two medium-length films SHORT STAY and CLASSICAL PERIOD on his own with the support of his environment, holding on to analogue film format while at the same time, representatives of mumblecore bet on online scores. Philadelphia and New Jersey are the settings of the plot, although there is basically no plot. Rather, these films, captured in a cinematically restrained way, are unagitated portraits of people who are Fendt’s age, who pursue their everyday life, often times isolated, even if they desire affection and recognition.
12 April, 8 pm – Luru Kino at Spinnerei – € 8 (7 red.) (for both films)
In the presence of Ted Fendt
SHORT STAY
USA 2016, D: Ted Fendt, A: Mike Maccherone, Elizabeth Soltan, Mark Simmons, 61′, English OV, 35mm
CLASSICAL PERIOD
USA 2018, D: Ted Fendt, A: Calvin Engime, Evelyn Emile, Sam Ritterman, Christopher Stump, 62′, English OV with German subtitles, 16mm
In SHORT STAY, the camera is above all occupied with following pizza delivery man Mike en route from A to B or trying to sleep. He sees his chance for a change of scenery when an old aquaintance, planning a long trip abroad, mentions that he is looking for somebody to take over his room in a shared flat and his “Free & Friendly Tour“ city tours in close-by Philadelphia. But even in the new surroundings, luck does not ensue.
If in his debut feature walking and sleeping are something like guiding themes, reading and thinking are the like in CLASSICAL PERIOD: a handful of young intellectuals meet for a reading circle where Dante’s “Divine Comedy“ is subjected to a thorough exegesis, apart from that there is talk about poetry, English church history and the own sleep- and restlessness. In sensually physical 16mm images, a microcosm emerges that is utterly shaped by the mind.
This is our first announcement:
| Sat 13 April 2019 UT Connewitz | LIVE SCORE |
| 9 PM | Andrea Belfi, I T O E & Flying Moon In Space live score Materialfilme (BRD W+B Hein): Materialfilme (1976 , 35′, 35mm), 625 (1969, 34′, digital), Reproductions (1968, 28′, digital) before: Andrea Marinelli: SECRETSHOW |
Being progressive representatives of the 60s’ and 70s’ underground film, Wilhelm and Birgit Hein carry out a radical rejection of narrative cinema. Their material-films, from which we will see a selection, are anti-illusionistic and non-conversational. The physical presence of the analogue film strip and the tecnichal requirements for its screening, which otherwise remain hidden (like the perforation needed for play-back, the soundtrack or the scraps occuring during preparation) are as much recurring elements of Wilhelm and Birgit Hein’s work as is the battered celluloid. Fragments and remnants of the usually unseen start- and endtape of 35mm film copies are key ingredients of MATERIALFILME, displaying scratches and new arrays defying the frames. 625 consists of grainy grids, negatively produced, spread in 625 lines that were filmed from a TV screen in shifting fuzziness.
I T O E , Andrea Belfi and Flying Moon in Space, all working in their own way at the interface of ambient, kraut and psychedelia, will each add exclusive live scores to one “Materialfilm”. Six headed Flying Moon in Space sounds as if it came from outta space. With a lot of sound effect tailwind, they create groovy, harmonious progrock and occasionally intense, eruptive jam passages. Solo drummer Andrea Belfi simultaneously plays on his spartan drum-set alongside various electronic sound generators, intertwining the rich sound spectrum generated by his playing techniques with the textures of synthesizers. Freedom inside of structure and synths as instruments are also the case with I T O E, fortifying their sound-radicals with guitar loops and occasional traces of saxophone to let them sprout in hypnotic repetitions.
In SECRETSHOW, Italian musician and media artist Andrea Marinelli works with the almost forgotten aesthetic potential of overhead projectors. In combination with electronic soundscapes, he improvises a unique experience of light and sound anew every time. His audiovisual performance makes use of urban and museal spaces’ peculiarities, the colours and textures of the walls, the rooms’ nooks and crannies. Photographs of faces, masks and statues overlap each other, shadows interfere and vanish, the usually defined framing of the image is subject to constant change. Aged film strips play with the aura of the iconic, while sound recordings of different languages and dialects open multiple semantic fields, reveal secrets and encrypt them again. This show has been performed at international festivals like the IFF Locarno, but the Milanese artist has also modified it for small, familial settings like private parties. Premiering in Germany at GEGENkino, Marinelli will design an evening for the acoustic and architectural characteristics of UT Connewitz.
T I C K E T S available at culton on Peterssteinweg 9 or online at tixforgigs.com
FI 2010, D: Maria Lindberg, 75’, German version, Blu-ray
The barometer is falling. Leaves are covered in grey dust. The sky is turning red. The Hattifatteners are the first to leave Moominvalley, more inhabitants follow. This is it, clearly visible: there is a comet in the sky! Moominpappa, Moomintroll and his friends Snufkin and Snif head off to figure out the secret of the flying fireball. They build a raft and ride it to the observatory in the mountains, a place that gives them a better view on the sky. There lives the professor, whose calculations reveal that the comet will hit the earth in four days, four minutes and forty-four seconds. Moomintroll and his friends decide to return to Moominvalley to warn everyone. On their way, they meet Snork and Snorkmaiden and become friends with them. But still, there is this tricky comet…
With tender puppet animations, MOOMINS AND THE COMET CHASE tells an adventure for small and big GEGENchildren, talks of a changing environment and of the courage to take action. Starring Björk’s comet song and lots of surprising incidents.
14 April, 2 pm – UT Connewitz – € 2
Released for children aged 0 or above
CHN 2018, Director: BI Gan, Monteur: QIN Yanan, Directors of Photography: YAO Hung-I, DONG Jinsong, David CHIZALLET, Actors: TANG Wei, HUANG Jue, SYLVIA Chang L, LEE Hong-Chi, DCP, 140′
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is Chinese director Bi Gan’s second fulllength feature. In the form of a neo-noir film, it tells of a man’s return to his hometown and his quest to find a woman he once loved. He is surrounded by different layers of things past that do not let him go. He passes through areas of back then, pursues traces, finds leads. Still, the approach stays no more than an appealing illusion. Stories and images drift, become more and more dreamlike, mingling with flashbacks of past love’s stylised memories. The present can no longer be detached from the unconscious. As protagonist Luo walks into a dim cinema, things take an unexpected turn. A film starts, he puts on his 3D glasses. He watches a screening of “Long Day’s Journey into Night”. Simultaneously, the audience’s sight switches into the third dimension, too: the last scene is a seventy minute one take. The elegant camera follows Lou underground, on top of a mountain, down a ropeway. Charmingly, we lift off with him and land in surreal surroundings. There, we follow movements through alleys and houses to end up in a spinning room.
14 April, 9:30 pm – Luru Kino at the Spinnerei – € 7,5 (6,5 red.)
Trailer
