Stephan Settele studied at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin from 1987 to 1994. The Verein CineGraph Babelsberg e.V. is presenting two programs of his films from this time.Two boat journeys, two journeys into time, two rivers: Settele's DIE REISE DER IDA IRMA NACH LUNOW (G 1991) and UPPFÖR DONAU (S 1969) by Peter Nestler. For the documentary DIE REISE DER IDA IRMA NACH LUNOW,Stephan Settele took as his starting point and structural framework the voyage of a barge named Ida Irma from Berlin's West Harbor to Lunow-Stolzenhagen (or to the Oder-Neisse border with Poland), a journey from the west of the recently reunited Berlin to the former GDR that had only just become accessible.(fl)
Settele shot his graduation film IM SCHNEELANDin the Japanese prefecture of Niigata, whose mountain ranges are some of the most snowy regions of the earth. Because of its isolated location on the island of Honshu's western coast, independent lifestyle and production methods emerged that were in part preserved into the 1990s. These are what Settele is most interested in. The attentive, unpretentious visual language and the dense voiceover create a cinematographic expedition bound by a tangible enthusiasm for everything that is handmade but at the same time always open for smaller and bigger digressions. A passage which traces the biography of the Buddhist monk and poet Ryōkan almost becomes a film in a film. A CineGraph Babelsberg event in cooperation with the Federal Archive/Film Archive and the Deutsche Kinemathek. (12.9., Guest: Stephan Settele)
