Magical History Tour Land Ahoy – Landscapes in Cinema

Films cannot be imagined without landscapes. The real or virtual sceneries are as variegated as the potential and functions of these topographies are comprehensive and diverse: Landscapes in films tell stories, create or reflect moods, anticipate them or let them fade away, they play the leading role, turn into landscapes of the soul, or serve as a symbolic backdrop, often resting statically in the fast-paced flow of the movie's plot. Cinematic landscapes are "the freest element of film, the most flexible to convey moods, emotions and spiritual experiences." (S. Eisenstein) Since the beginning of cinematography, landscape shots - the depiction of both exotic foreign regions and home pastures - have fascinated audiences. Later, films of landscape-intensive genres such as mountain films, films with a regional background, war movies, or westerns constructed spectacular panoramas of a usually overwhelming nature. Beyond genre conventions, documentary, feature and experimental films open up a widely branched field of landscape depictions and the way they are constructed and called into question, which we would like to partially shed light on with 17 films in January.