Unknown Pleasures #9
 – American Independent Film Fest

Unknown Pleasures #9 presents a selection of award-winning American independent films that provide an alternative insight into US filmmaking. Most of them are being screened in Germany for the first time. What is clear is that many deal with the question of what can be shown if there are no pictures: How can memories be depicted (MARJORIE PRIME)? How can the origins of the universe be imagined (VOYAGE OF TIME)? How can one tell one's own family story if only fragments remain (DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN?) There are many, varied answers.

If one looks back on the past year, it seems only right that a film that documents the day of the presidential election should be at the center of Unknown Pleasures #9. Kevin Jerome Everson's TONSLER PARK shows images of a polling station in a predominantly Afro-American district of Charlottesville, Virginia; pictures of a lived democracy. The film is one of the most important of the year. Its reduced dispositif develops a maximum force and brings home the fact that we have before us a battlefield. Since its premiere, the film's reception has changed dramatically: Last summer, a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville erupted into violence and a car drove into a mass of people. The horror is palpable from the outset in Travis Wilkerson's DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN? The filmmaker travels to the south to tell the story of his great-grandfather – a white man who shot dead a black man at the end of the 1940s. A family story becomes a horror story. What is conspicuous is that the films explore their environment very accurately. Regional cinema, made away from the big cities, has always represented a central strand of independent filmmaking. In these films, to talk about people means to talk about their environment – landscapes, cities, towns and buildings do not only provide a scenic background. One of the finest examples of this is Kogonada’s feature debut COLUMBUS. The eponymous medium-sized town in the state of Indiana is known for its modernist architecture. In this documentary-esque feature, architectural history and the fate of two people merge furiously. MARJORIE PRIME and ESCAPES are both by Michael Almereyda. MARJORIE PRIME is a science fiction film in which holograms (Jon Hamm, Tim Robbins, Geena Davis) take the place of dead people, to give solace and provide "living" memories. Hampton Fancher is known above all as the writer of the sci-fi classic "Blade Runner" (1982) and of "Blade Runner 2049" (2017). In ESCAPES, we learn much more about his unusual life. Terrence Malick's VOYAGE OF TIME: LIFE'S JOURNEY is also cosmic. After taking years to shoot, this documentary about the origins of the universe can now be seen in Germany for the first time.