Leonor Noivo and her co-author Patricia Guerreiro verbalize the deal we agree to when watching films outright in the very first moments of REYNARD: One person (Patricia) will represent another person (Maria). The question where a person ends and a character begins splinters ambiguously into microcosms between world and self. One’s own body, this “solidary mass“ (Jean- Luc Nancy), is being mirrored in a gentle fiction, filtered through the camera of a filmmaker, enriched with biography, expanded as a metaphor and perceived as an imprint in the world: as a skin of plaster, as ephemeral waves on a water surface and a screen for the bursts of light from a projector. Intruding elements – air, light, food, words – constitute a permanent danger of contagion, of loss of self, of annihilation. The means of battle: counting, rituals, friendship, cinema.
Contamination is also a central motif in THE BITE. As an epidemic, it threatens the lie of a natural, binary order of the sexes and serves as a cipher for the rise of neo-fascist structures in Brazilian society. Originally developed as a documentary- fictional multi-channel installation, the film vibrates to the sounds of London based sound artist HAUT inside a future imbued with mosquitoes that does not lie only “ahead of us“. As if we were simply dreaming on the previous film, the warm colours of DEAD PRINCESS OF JACUÍ unfold in a rainforest region called “Central Depression”. As if he was fearing the invasion of genetically manipulated mosquitoes of THE BITE, archaeologist Moreira is wearing a white protective suit. Driven by panic attacks, he travels to the heart of his own darkness to face the demons of his past and rewrite history.
| Wed 01 Sept | Plagwitzer Markthalle |
| 9.30 pm | SHORT FILM REEL Raposa 40′ + The Bite 26′ + Dead Princess of Jacuí regular: 6,5€ / reduced 5,5€ |
RAPOSA / REYNARD
PT 2019, D: Leonor Noivo, C: Patricia Guerreiro, 40’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP
A MORDIDA / THE BITE
PT/BR 2019, D: Pedro Neves Marques, C: Ana Flávia Cavalcanti, Alina Dorzbacher, Kelner Macedo, 26’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP
PRINCESA MORTA DO JACUÍ / DEAD PRINCESS OF JACUÍ
BR 2019, D: Marcela Ilha Bordin, C: Gabriel Palma, Maíra Flores, 15’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP
HK 1997, D: Fruit Chan, C: Sam Lee, Neiky Yim Hui Chi, Wenders Li, 104’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP
Moon plays basketball, cares for his mentally handicapped friend Sylvester and finances his every day life with occasional jobs for triad boss Brother Wing. He meets ill Ping, whom he tries to help thereafter. Simultaneously, farewell letters of an unknown girl make the group of adolescents search for a ghost in the big city. MADE IN HONG KONG is a pessimistic view into the future of an isolated terrain. Fruit Chan’s heroes are aware that the world is oriented against them. Nevertheless, they try to oppose hopelessness.
| Thu 02 Sept | Luru Kino |
| 7 pm | With an introduction by Clemens von Haselberg regular: 6,5€ / reduced 5,5€ double feature: 11€ / reduced 9€ |
HK 1980, D: Tsui Hark, C: Lo Lieh, Lin Chen-Chi, Albert Au, 95’, German Version, 35mm
Hong Kong as a powder keg. A consumer society full of violence and corruption on stranglehold of Western colonialism. In addition, a discontented youth that strikes the match. Three students plant a home-made bomb in a cinema. Psychotically disposed Pearl observes them and blackmails the gang to conduct more anarchist actions. A youthful-naive cell develops. The gang stumbles upon the affairs of cold-blooded American Vietnam veterans – soon a triad is interested in them. The film is a rebellious early work of New Wave director Tsui Hark, who uses inescapable images with a frantic pace to stage a tabooed subject as a visual hell ride. A nihilistic shocker about a youth threatened to go to rack and ruin if their future is taken away from them.
| Thu 02 Sept | Luru Open-Air |
| 10 pm | regular: 6,5€ / reduced 5,5€ double feature: 11€ / reduced 9€ |
HK 1999, D: Johnnie To, C: Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Jackie Lui Chung-Yin, 81’, Orig. with Eng. subs, 35mm
Brother Lung’s life is sought for, so five members of his organization are going to serve as his bodyguards: Roy and his right hand Shin, weapons expert James, Mike the pistol hero and cold-blooded murderer Curtis. Without revealing much of themselves, they quickly form a team with a mission. Staged in a condensed manner, we observe this gang of men as they sparingly reveal their individual character. Johnnie To stages how a peculiar partnership develops out of the slightest physical actions and the smallest emotional impulses, always accompanied by standoffs and shootouts packed with suspense. In the end, chumminess is opposed by loyalty to the organization. A genre film between kinetic actions and moments of silence.
| Fri 03 Sept | Luru Open-Air |
| 10 pm | regular: 6,5€ / reduced 5,5€ double feature: 11€ / reduced 9€ |
HK 2014, D: Fruit Chan, C: Wong Yau-Nam, Janice Man, Chui Tien-You, 124’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP
A red public bus is winding its way through the urban chaos of Hong Kong. Gradually, it fills up with different characters. When the bus rides through Lion Rock tunnel, something inexplicable happens: Streets and whole city districts are empty, everything up to the passengers seems to have vanished. To make matters worse, they are haunted by strange phenomena defying human logic – resulting in seeking refuge in hallucinatory fantasies and conspiracy theories. With MIDNIGHT AFTER, Fruit Chan tells of the dissolution of an established order. What remains are disorientation and a pessimistic view into the unknown.
| Fri 03 Sept | Luru Kino |
| 7 pm | With an introduction by Clemens von Haselberg regular: 6,5€ / reduced 5,5€ double feature: 11€ / reduced 9€ |
