How film writes history differently Frieda Grafe – 30 Films

In 1995, the film critic and author Frieda Grafe (1934–2002) compiled a list of her favorite 30 films for the magazine steadycam. It included works made between 1926 and 1986. Some, such as films by Mizoguchi, Godard and Mankiewicz, were to be expected, whereas others were more surprising, such as works by Pagnol, Barnet, Capra, or Langdon's silent movie "The Strong Man" and Roger Corman's "Little Shop of Horrors" that was shot in one and a half days. No female director was included in the list and certain directors were not necessarily represented by their main works. Grafe chose Billy Wilder's AVANTI! for instance, Fritz Lang's HOUSE BY THE RIVER and "Akibiyori" by Yasujiro Ozu. She played with the canon, approaching it, leaving it and even mocking it in the end.

Frieda Grafe's work was shaped by a language that was inspired and moved by films and an attitude more akin to a translator's than a critic's. She lived and formulated the bourgeois and anti-bourgeois like nobody else. Her practice was against collecting and amassing and more about connecting not only the old arts and media but also the cinema to create a network.

Grafe's 30 chosen films have been divided into three series of 10 that can be seen in April, July and October. The films find new contexts here; sometimes they were made in the same year and can be seen as double bills, maybe shedding new light on a particular time or decade. This reflects Frieda Grafe's attitude to the material relationship between film and history, which she described in the early 1990s as follows: "The new historians are different from the old ones, who were storytellers, because they have an expanded view of history that perhaps already has film in it since sounds and images cling to it, and thus a less intentional culture settles and succumbs to what is general, unplanned and dubious."

A magazine-like publication on each of the three series will be issued by Brinkmann & Bose that has already published Grafe's complete written works in 12 volumes. For each edition of "Frieda Grafe - 30 Films", academics, filmmakers, historians and cultural theorists will write a new text about each film. Some know the work of Frieda Grafe but many have the problem that her texts have barely been translated. This is exactly the crux of the matter: to put Frieda Grafe's views and writings in an international, contemporary context and, against this backdrop, to see the films with new eyes. The authors will introduce and present the films in the cinema.