Cinéclub: Contemporary German Film

Slought and the Cinema Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania are pleased to announce "Cinéclub: Contemporary German Filmmakers," featuring screenings by contemporary German filmmakers Ute Aurand, Milena Gierke, and Renate Sami. The event, has been organized by Karen Beckman and will take place on October 1 and 2, 2008 from 6:30-8:30pm. The filmmakers will be present at both programs, and invite audiences to join them in conversation after the screenings.

While New German Cinema has received relatively extensive attention from U.S. audiences, the work of filmmakers operating outside of a narrative context is less well known. The films brought together for these two programs, though very different from each other, are all marked by a quality of intimacy and tenderness, by their independent vision and form, by an intense sensuousness, and at times by an irresistible humor. They cover three decades of filmmaking, criss-cross a variety of styles and genres, and demonstrate the differences a camera can make as we move from Gierke's Super 8, to Aurand's Bolex, and Sami's MiniDV.

Film Program for Wednesday, October 1

Making Apple Juice (Milena Gierke, S8 Film, without sound, color, edited in the camera, 1993, 2 ½ min.) Apples are prepared for making juice by washing and squeezing them. Close-ups create the impression that the apples are moving of their own accord.

Toads (Milena Gierke, S8 Film, without sound, colour, edited in the camera, 1997, 6 min.) Images of a stream in southern France: it's the toads' mating season. Movement on the water surface distorts the toads, sometimes making them unrecognizable, bringing two different levels of perception into the action.

OH! The 4 Seasons (Ute Aurand in collaboration with Ulrike Pfeiffer, 1988 20 min 16mm) Aurand and Pfeiffer filmed each other at four famous sites in Europe: walking in a summer dress through the snow in front of the Reichstag in Berlin; spinning a young boy again and again through the air in Red Square in Moscow; climbing on a hot day into the waterfall at the Place de la Concorde in Paris; and, as two angels in London, walking through the night of the City. The film begins with a text by Jonas Mekas about improvisation and is edited in the camera.

Wanderings. Film diary 1975-1985 (Renate Sami, 2005, MiniDv, 38 minutes) Several portraits of friends, women and men, the Polish Market on Potsdamer Platz, the Wall, a picnic in the Park, on the road in Italy, Turin in Winter, a poem by Cesare Pavese. The film was originally shot on Super8, was then transmitted to MiniDV and left without sound to be punctuated here and there with some short pieces of music.

Film Program for Thursday, October 2

The Protection Foil (Renate Sami, 1983 8 minutes 16mm b/w) This film was produced as part of a project with films against the atomic threat. It consists of one shot with a young man who tries to wrap himself into a foil and a singer who accompanies herself on a children`s bandoneon.

When You See A Rose (Renate Sami, 1995, 4.5 minutes, 16mm, Color) Under the spell of Cathy Berberians voice, scraps of melodies and poems in my head, in love with spring and summers flowers, I walked through streets and gardens, pastures, fields and forests, and by the end of that summer 1995 I had a little film which ends somewhat melancholically with some chords of Gustav Mahlers "Traveling Journeymans Songs"

The Butterfly in Winter (Ute Aurand in collaboration with Maria Lang, 2006, 30min., 16mm) The filmmaker Maria Lang reads out of her diary, which she has been writing since 1991, after her move to the countryside to take care of her mother. Fourteen years later, Ute Aurand began filming Maria's daily nursing of her mother, now 96 years old. Every morning Maria opens the windows, places the mother in the wheel-chair, is washing and dressing her, combs and braids her long white hair. It is repeated day after day, but every day is different.

Every Hour I, February-April 1991 (Milena Gierke, 1991, color, silent, 6 min. 30 sec.) "For three months, I filmed a portrait of myself every hour, including my surroundings in the picture. The hours when I was sleeping are shown by the use of black film." Every Hour I is one of Gierke's most well known works. Its central theme is the pure cinematic and conceptually conveyed question of the relationship between motion and stillness in relation to the mental and emotional development of each individual.

AIDS Walk in Central Park (Milena Gierke, 1995, b&w, silent, 6 min.) "After the participants in the AIDS Walk in Central Park were welcomed by applauding crowds, the human masses thinned out into the expanse of the park grounds. Live music played and people had picnics en masse. I observed the moods of the very diverse group of people who gathered on a sweltering day. As the day progressed, more and more of them began to move to the music, and finally began to dance."

Stranger I (Milena Gierke, 1990, colour, silent, 1 min. 30 sec.) "An older man walks slowly down the pavement. He doesn?t notice that he's being filmed. He appears to be from another world, completely in his own thoughts. Suddenly, without any apparent reason, he stops in his tracks. Other pedestrians continue, in their accustomed, hurried manner, past him."

Stranger II (Milena Gierke, 1992, colour, silent, 3 min.) "A rubbish dump in the mountains of southern France. Camera editing results in a suggested but untold story."