Book presentation "Realismus. Das Kino und die Politik des Ästhetischen"

Since the avant-garde movements of the 1920s, an aesthetic utopia has been associated with cinema: it is based on the expectation that cinema might achieve what one cannot hope of the existing political institutions, namely, to relate concrete living conditions, as sensuous and graphic relations, to the individual’s horizon of experience. In his book, Hermann Kappelhoff, Professor of Film Studies at the FU Berlin, questions the topicality of this aesthetic utopia. He takes a tour of the history of cinema and in studies on such different directors as Eisenstein, Visconti, Fassbinder, Friedkin, and Almodóvar works out how the graphicness of history and society can be concretely depicted.

After the lecture we will show the director's cut of THE EXORCIST (William Friedkin, USA 1973, Jan. 25). (Sarah-Mai Dang)