Filmmakers' Choice

The amateurs: grand gestures, murder and music. As the start of new film series, filmmakers whose works we distribute will be presenting films both old and new by their filmmaking colleagues. Eva Heldmann and Sabine Schöbel are setting the ball rolling on Novemver 21: "The grand feelings and gestures of Hollywood and the world of (musical) theatre and how these are assimilated in anarchistic fashion in the realm of experimental cinema are our theme. In DER BRÄUTIGAM, DIE KOMÖDIANTIN UND DER ZUHÄLTER (West Germany 1968) Straub/Huillet document a performance by the Munich antiteater. They present a eulogy to love in opposition to Fassbinder's libertarian disenchantment. HEINRICH (Sabine Schöbel, Germany 2011) dissects the idea of the singing hero. In 1933 (Joyce Wieland, USA 1967), a street in New York rehearses the same performance ten times over. When Frieda Grafe wrote about NEURASIA (Werner Schroeter, West Germany 1968), it was all about "idols, devotion, mythology, and ecstasy. It's only about a final significance, about the highest degree of meaning." BACK TO NATURE (George Kuchar, USA 1967) is an unabashed homage to Hollywood.