IR/DE 2023, D: Ali Ahmadzadeh, A: Amir Pousti, Shirin Abedinirad, Maryam Sadeghiyan, 99′, OV with English subtitles, DCP
Amir is a courier. His cargo could earn him the death penalty. He shares his flat with a dog, whose mouth he covers after eating so that it swallows its medicine. In the end, Amir will do the same with a young addict. The people in the critical zone, which Iran has degenerated into under the mullahs’ captivity, have to swallow bitter pills every day. CRITICAL ZONE tells of the precarious conditions and the small moments of rebellion: hash brownies in an old people’s home or undisguised outbursts of rage. The Locarno winner of 2023 is a gesture of resistance par excellence, realised with great creativity and a sense of formal sophistication despite the director’s activity ban.
| Wed 11. Sept | Luru Kino in der Spinnerei |
| 9:30 pm | € 7 (6 reduced) |
Homage | RAINER KOMERS
Three portraits of the Ruhr region and at the same time proof of the versatility of Rainer Komers’ documentary film work: ZIGEUENER IN DUISBURG is a sober but always sympathetic portrait of the lives of Sinti and Roma people who have been forcibly resettled on a site that is too small, reporting on the everyday hostility and harassment to which they are subjected. In contrast, EIN SCHLOSS FÜR ALLE is downright cheerful. The lives of a number of senior citizens in the working-class neighbourhood of Styrum in Mülheim are captured in a verbose, heartfelt way with a direct camera view. The narrative style of B 224 is completely different, compiling precisely framed, often static scenes of everyday life and work along the motorway that gives the film its title; a Ruhr “symphony” originates.
B 224
DE 1999, D: Rainer Komers, 23‘, Doc, no dialogue, 35mm
ZIGEUNER IN DUISBURG
DE 1980, D: Rainer Komers, 37‘, Doc, OV with English subtitles, DCP
EIN SCHLOSS FÜR ALLE
DE 1997, D: Rainer Komers, 44‘, Doc, German version, File
| Wed 11. Sept | Luru Kino in der Spinnerei |
| 7 pm | In the presence of Rainer Komers € 7 (6 reduced) |
Homage | RAINER KOMERS
Homage to the documentarist Rainer Komers
Rainer Komers (*1944) is a German documentary filmmaker, cameraman, graphic artist and writer whose precisely crafted and carefully narrated short and feature-length documentary films are waiting to be widely discovered beyond a specialised audience. Komers mostly shoots “travelogues”, in which he takes a look – attentive, from a certain distance, often critical – at the mentalities, living and everyday spaces of people whose culture is not his own. His cinema is one of picked up modes of speaking and rhythms. It is a quiet, unagitated cinema that could also be described as a “counter-cinema” due to its rejection of classic reportage modes, such as contextualising classifications of what is seen – without appearing militant.
The films deliberately allow for non-understanding – they do not suggest that as an outsider in a foreign place, you could get a complete picture of its uniqueness. Komers makes film mosaics. Once they move into familiar territory, you don’t get the impression that it’s about the filmmaker himself: the people portrayed are an active part in the whole. A feeling for the “country and its people” is built up in them piece by piece; Komers is interested in the small, the detailed views, as well as the whole that appears in them – the total view.
Komers was born in 1944 in Guben, Brandenburg. After working as a printmaker, he studied film at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and has been making numerous documentary films since the late 1970s. As early as 1980, his medium-length film ZIGEUNER IN DUISBURG, which takes a critical look at the contemporary living conditions of Sinti and Roma people, won the German Film Critics’ Award. This was followed by the Ruhr Prize for Art and Science in 2006 and the ARTE Documentary Film Prize at the Duisburg Film Week in 2019 for his feature-length landscape, city and artist portrait BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA. In addition to more than 30 of his own directorial works, in which he is always his own cameraman, Komers is closely associated with the work of the significant German documentary filmmaker Peter Nestler (*1937) as a cinematographer to this day.
The homage aims to pay tribute to the diversity of Komers’ oeuvre in three programmes. Different forms of his aforementioned “travelogues” will be presented as well as a concentrated look at the Ruhr region so familiar to him, an area of upheavals, myths and grievances. We are delighted that Rainer Komers will be present at all of the programmes and that he makes the films of our selection, most of which were produced on analogue material, available to us on historical film prints. Moreover, we offer you an insight into his artistic work beyond film: on the third date of the homage, Komers will be reading a selection of his poems, while screen-printed posters designed by him in the 1960s and 70s, which have since found their way into the museum, will be hanging at Luru Kino.
| 11.09.24 Luru Kino | |
| 7 pm | B 224 DE 1999, D: Rainer Komers, 23‘, Doc, no dialogue, 35mm ZIGEUNER IN DUISBURG DE 1980, D: Rainer Komers, 37‘, Doc, OV with English subtitles, DCP EIN SCHLOSS FÜR ALLE DE 1997, D: Rainer Komers, 44‘, Doc, German version, File In the presence of Rainer Komers |
| 12.09.24 Luru Kino | |
| 7 pm | BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA DE/US 2018, D: Rainer Komers, 76’, Doc, OV wit German subtitles, DCP NOME ROAD SYSTEM DE/US 2004, D: Rainer Komers, 26’, Doc, no dialogue, 35mm In the presence of Rainer Komers |
| 9 pm | Rainer Komers reads a selection of his poetry KOBE DE/JP 2006, D: Rainer Komers, 45‘, Doc, no dialogue, 35mm MA’RIB DE/YE 2007, D: Rainer Komers, 30‘, Doc, no dialogue, 35mm In the presence of Rainer Komers |
Special | MILIEU-KINO
US 80s, 82’, OmU, 35mm
On 11 September we show a groundbreaking film that authentically portrays the hip hop subculture. Director Charlie Ahearn sheds light on the four main pillars of hip hop: graffiti, breakdancing, DJing and rap. The story follows Zoro, a talented graffiti artist who tries to prevail with his art against an often hostile society. He meets other artists and musicians such as Fab 5 Freddy, Grandmaster Flash, The Cold Crush Brothers and Lady Pink. The movie offers a visual and musical journey full of iconic moments, dynamic breakdance battles and rousing live performances. With a mix of early 80s nostalgia and social-anthropological elements, the film crystallises the optimism and vibrancy of the early New York hip hop scene and shows that the portrayal of the Bronx in film and television at the time as a wild and inhospitable hellhole was perhaps not entirely accurate. The movie is a cultural document that has had a lasting impact on pop culture and is considered a pioneering work that popularised hip hop worldwide.
| Sun 11 Sept | Milieu Kino at Rabet Park |
| 4 pm | € Free admission |
Special | MILIEU-KINO
We are delighted to present a mobile venue yet again this year with Milieu Kino from Vienna. From 11 to 13 September, we will be presenting a programme for children and adults in Rabet park. There, you can completely indulge in the charm of this unique venue. Milieu Kino is a project by Max Kauffmann, who conceived and completed it over many years of work. The small cinema hall is located in a specially converted lorry. The back of the lorry bed can be transformed into a foyer with a box office and bar in a single movement. With its neon signage, poster display cases and 15 upholstered folding armchairs inside, this modern travelling cinema lacks nothing that you would expect from a traditional cinema – there is even a 35mm projector, which we will be using of course.
Loosely following on from our BAD GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN series, in which we present female appropriations of US exploitation cinema from the 60s to the 80s, we are expanding our US-American line-up at Milieu Kino this year with an afternoon programme consisting of animated films for kids (and everyone else), supplemented with subculture-affine classics and a dose of grindhouse. The days start at 2 pm with short film programmes of LOONEY TUNES, followed at 4 pm by a 35mm screening for the slightly older ones.
| 11.09.24 Rabet Park | |
| 2 pm | LOONEY TUNES I Short film series, German OV, 70′, File |
| 4 pm | WILD STYLE US 1983, D: Charlie Ahearn, A: Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, Fab 5 Freddy, 82’, English OV with German subtitles, 35mm |
| 12.09.24 Rabet Park | |
| 2 pm | LOONEY TUNES II Short film series, German OV, 70′, File |
| 4 pm | SKATEBOARD US 1978, D: George Gage, A: Allen Garfield, Kathleen Lloyd, Leif Garrett, 97’, English OV, 35mm |
| 13.09.24 Rabet Park | |
| 2 pm | LOONEY TUNES III Short film series, German OV, 70′, File |
| 4 pm | ROLLERBABIES US 1976, D: Carter Stevens, A: Susan McBain, Alan Marlow, Terri Hall, 84′, English OV, 35mm |
