filmtexts

[filmtexts]

Toto, We’re Not at Seattle Grace Anymore … KRANK BERLIN: An Adrenaline Shot For the Hospital Series

To research for a film Q&A (about Rave On, a brand new drama set in Berlin’s techno club scene), upon perusing co-director Viktor Jakovleski’s filmography, I made a note to watch an episode of recent hospital series KRANK BERLIN, which Jakovleski co-created with Samuel Jefferson.  The single episode became a Sunday binge watch of the entire series (eight episodes in total). Am no aficionado of German TV fare: found four (three of them Berlin set) international German/German co-produced TV blockbusters 4 Blocks, Berlin Babylon, Dark and Unorthodox entertaining enough but somewhat overhyped. KRANK BERLIN was different.

The doctors of KRANK Berlin: Dr. Dominik "Dom" Kohn (Aram Tafreshian), Dr. Suzanna "Zanna" Parker (Haley Louise Jones), Dr. Ben Weber (Slavko Popadic), Dr. Emina Ertan (Safak Sengül). (c) Apple TV+

This Apple original, co-produced with ZDFneo (international title: Berlin ER – the current show’s dynamic camera choreography certainly takes it cue from that classic medical drama, but is no mere clone), was compelling, surprising and thought-provoking. The premise: Dr. Suzanna “Zanna” Parker (Haley Louise Jones), who ran a thriving geriatric ward in Munich, is hired to run the emergency room at KRANK (literally “sick”, later in the series we learn it’s an acronym based on KRAnkenhaus-NeuKölln, the inner city district where the hospital or “Krankenhaus” is located), supposedly the worst public medical care facility in Germany.  Hospital chief Dr. Steffen Beck (Peter Lohmeyer), a callous corporate type, has previously lost three ER heads in quick succession and despite his surprise at Zanna’s interest in this thankless job, hires her on the spot. Zanna’s reasons for her abrupt move to Berlin will be revealed throughout the season’s first half.

After a quick briefing - Zanna’s mandate is to cut costs and increase income - Dr. Beck curtly shows her around the ER. The put upon staff is understandably suspicious about ER head no. 4.  They are too busy for an introduction meeting Zanna tries to summon, and no one is eager to show her around. So Zanna meets her reluctant team members one by one. Surgeon Dr. Ben Weber (Slavko Popadic) is first seen high as a kite in a techno club (the throbbing beats, flashing lights and trippy POV camerawork are reminiscent of the club scenes in Rave On, which Jakovleski co-directed with Nikias Chryssos; both film and series convincingly convey the music and drug-induced euphoria and subsequent comedown). We think he’s a patient as he staggers into work while managing to treat a patient with an injection and a nurse reveals his identity. Ben is a highly functional addict who nonetheless expects his colleagues to cover for him. Fellow surgeon, brilliant but cynical Dr. Emina Ertan (Safak Sengül) is increasingly annoyed but still saves Ben’s ass. Emina is estranged from her parents, repeatedly brushes off her teenager brother Afrim (while not fully concealing a soft spot for him) and is actively seeking better employment. Other team members include personable Dr. Kian Amini (Benjamin Radjaipour), who’s particularly tight with Ben, overtaxed nurses May-Lee Krause (Mai Phuong Kollath), Trixie Rathenow (Berit Künnecke), Jenny Heinze (Jessica Maderski) and Nerize Kapanadze (Simona Theoharova). The only staffer who seems to welcome Zanna isresident Dr. Dominik “Dom” Kohn (Aram Tafreshian). Dom actually works in the internal medicine ward but interacts often with the ER team. He explains to Zanna that he can afford to be friendly and relaxed because his ward, unlike the ER, has enough staff to manage its workload. This changes when Zanna doesn’t rubberstamp Dom’s certificate of ER rotation as her predecessor had promised because Dom had often worked in ER; instead, Zanna assigns him a full six-month rotation. As the series progresses, we will learn that Dom’s geniality masks how out of his depth he will prove to be in ER.

Paramedics Olivia Kropf (Samirah Breuer) and Olaf Hendel (Bernhard Schütz) on duty. (c) Apple TV+ The two other main characters are the paramedics who regularly bring patients to the ER: crusty old hand Olaf Hendel (Bernhard Schütz) and outspoken, idealistic rookie Olivia Kropf (Samirah Breuer). While the pair are perpetually at loggerheads, they’re a functional team. Olivia takes offence at Olaf’s presuming that most calls are drug-related – she thinks he’s prejudiced; he chalks it up to four decades of on-the-job experience. 

TV drama rarely functions without some amorous entanglement. KRANK BERLIN is no exception, but the romantic plotlines are organic and their resolution satisfying without being too pat. Without giving away too much: for Olivia and Emina, it’s basically love at first sight; their initial breezy flirtation evolves into something deeper.  The connection between seemingly straitlaced Zanna and traumatized “party boy” Ben seems less obvious and more rocky. The third central couple is Dom and his Swiss fiancée Laura Kipping (Morgane Ferru). The subtle pressure on Dom to live up to her expectations will lead to a succession of ill-fated decisions and actions.

These gut-wrenching turns of events are the results of character flaws, but also systemic flaws. Zanna talks drag queen Miss Priscilla (Jurassica Parka) into an unnecessary gallstone removal – with dire consequences – largely because Dr. Beck and the healthcare system he embodies chase revenue from surgical procedures and longer hospital stays, as ER care costs more than it earns. Dom uses the breakdown of the entire ER IT system and ensuing chaos as a smokescreen to cover up his malpractice. Other doctors might not have made the mistake overwhelmed Dom did, but Beck’s budget cuts and negligence caused the perilous mess in the first place.  

Even potential cliché villain Dr. Beck, indeed all characters - doctors, patients and their loved ones - are complex and lived in, thanks to exceptional acting and writing. The series is grounded by the experience of co-show runner and headwriter Samuel Jefferson as a former ER physician in his native Britain, and stories of some Berlin doctor friends about how they coped (or less so) with the enormous pressure and often horrific situations. A clubgoing doctor who uses is no flight of fancy – studies show that 20-30% of physicians abuse prescription medication obtained from their workplaces on a regular basis.

To get some criticism out of the way. Firstly, according to an article in the weekly news magazine Stern by science journalist Bernhard Albrecht, use of the term “Fallpauschale”, the per case flat fee charged for medical services, is fuzzy. Zanna encourages her team (gradually warming to her) to refer cases for surgical procedures and overnight hospital stays to bolster the cash-strapped ER’s coffers, but these fees would not actually be ER revenue but that of the other departments in question.

Secondly, there’s Ben’s treatment of non-insured patients such as homeless people and non-documented immigrants. His intentions are admirable, and he takes considerable risks by stealing from the hospital supply of antibiotics and painkillers (although on occasion he uses his illicit patients as a pretext to get colleagues to pilfer opioids for his own use) and treating people in a derelict, disused wing of KRANK. However, one wonders if Ben might not help his patients more by springing for the not so long cab ride to the real-life free clinic near Ostbahnhof train station which is specialized in treating undocumented patients. Unfortunately, they’re not open 24/7, but they can provide follow-up care in clean treatment rooms. Of course, this makes less exciting TV. And the subplot of Ben treating snowballing ranks of (male) undocumented Eastern European migrants, who juggle sex work with semi-indentured servitude to shady logistics subcontractors, allows the series to address precarious labor. (Ben’s other off the books patient, 60-something homeless junkie Viktoria, played by Volksbühne theater star Susanne Bredehöft, dwells in a makeshift camp behind KRANK, with the staff looking the other away. Ben provides her with clean needles as her addiction is beyond rehab. Eventually, Viktoria, who may or may not have been an academic, fatally ODs. Ben secretly disposes of the body, removing a bandage he had applied to her gangrenous leg; he’s then haunted by apparitions of her, including in a socially presentable incarnation.)

A word or two about Berlin geography according to the show. KRANK is located in Neukölln and we see shots of streets in the northern part of that district along with ubiquitous Kottbusser Tor in adjacent district Kreuzberg. That neighborhood hub is shown both as crime flashpoint and alluring nightlife spot teeming with clubs and bars or several characters enjoying an afterwork beer al fresco on the colorfully neon-lit streets. Ben’s dingy apartment in a postwar tenement is also in this neighborhood.

The interior of the abandoned SEZ was chosen to "portray" the KRANK hospital. (c) IMAGO/Rolf Zöllner

The building which “plays” KRANK is the disused sports and leisure center SEZ, located where former East Berlin districts Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg and Lichtenberg meet. The soon to be demolished building, which housed swimming pools, bowling alleys, snack bars and a disco, is an inspired choice. The socialist modernist architecture implies bureaucratic functionality, yet not quite suitable for healthcare – a nice surreal touch. And as a graffiti-strewn condemned building, SEZ’s eerie dilapidation is perfect for the jerry-built underfunded ER on the edge of collapse. This apt location in the former East, however, led to some incongruence. Olivia and Olaf frequently answer calls in clubs and drug dens in Neukölln, ostensibly not far from the hospital. In several shots we see tram tracks en route to their destination. Most tram routes run in the former east, except one train which services Hauptbahnhof main station and ends in the former west neighborhood Moabit. In Kreuzberg and Neukölln, however, there’s currently no tram service (although extensions of existing routes into Neukölln and Kreuzberg are under discussion). The tram tracks are likely those near the SEZ location. Another head-scratcher: towards the end of the penultimate episode, Dom observes black smoke arising from the Venti club – said to be very close to KRANK, thus the beleaguered ER will shoulder most of the fire victim treatment in season closer episode 8. Dom is standing on a bridge, watching the billowing smoke on what appears to be the northern, formerly East Berlin side of the Spree river. KRANK, however, is located in Neukölln, south of the Spree. (The Venti exterior resembles that of Berghain, in Friedrichshain.)

Theses quibbles aside (other Berlin-based series also forego geographical veracity to serve picturesque visuals), KRANK BERLIN gets much right, particularly in depicting the social makeup and conflicts in contemporary Berlin. The diversity, especially in healthcare, is depicted matter of factly. Staff members from Turkish, Iranian, Afro-German, Georgian, German and other backgrounds work at KRANK. While some backstories hint at cultural specificity, the characters are not stereotypes. Queer communities, particularly drag queens and trans people, are shown with dignity and agency. Obstacles to Emina and Olivia’s budding romance are grounded in conflicts unrelated to queerness, primarily Emina considering a job offer at Zanna’s old hospital in Munich to escape Berlin and KRANK. This is more refreshing matter of factness. The aforementioned habitual drug use is depicted non-judgmentally as a growing problem affecting many walks of life, as our crisis-riddled age becomes increasingly hard to cope with. Olivia and Olaf are called to a dysfunctional senior citizens’ home which illustrates the plight of many elderly patients and careworkers (the last one holding down the fort is played by Margarita Breitkreuz, another Volksbühne actress and indie cinema stalwart). The increase in violent crime is addressed, not with cliché mobsters (often Arabic, Turkish, Russian or Chechen), but rather the victims of gang-related shootings or knife attacks delivered to the ER. Both Olaf and Emina make tough choices when treating racist patients – in Emina’s case, a policeman who is directly responsible for harming her brother but will likely not be held accountable. The late capitalist system is rigged and accelerating social breakdown, and this affects the characters and their behavior.

A twist during the season finale (there’s talk of season 2) elevates the series onto even higher levels of social commentary with bitter humor (particularly successful payoff of an earlier plot detail). Yet the show ends on a note of defiant hope.

Along with the documentary series Capital B (by Florian Opitz), currently streaming on arte, a chronicle of post-1989 Berlin history through the lens of urban development and utopias falling prey to greed and corruption, KRANK BERLIN offers the most vibrant and complex portrait of Berlin’s social undercurrents. A triumph of compelling storytelling because, not despite, it’s also socially relevant.

KRANK BERLIN is streaming on Apple TV+

[filmtexts]

Women Listening – The Long Road to the Director’s Chair by Vibeke Løkkeberg

Everybody's Listenin': director Vibeke Løkkeberg (seated center). Lower right: feminist magazine EMMA publisher Alice Schwarzer photo (c) bpk/Abisag Tüllmann

The opening day of the Berlinale Forum section in the soon to be vacated Arsenal cinema was an almost hauntological experience as past, present and future looped, ricocheted and mingled. Vibeke Løkkeberg’s documentary The Long Road to the Director’s Chair captures a seminal event in the histories of the women’s movement, independent cinema, and the Arsenal itself. In 1973, German filmmakers, authors and activists Helke Sander and Claudia von Alemann organized the first Frauenfilm-Seminar (women’s film seminar) at the Arsenal’s first premise off West Berlin’s high street Kurfürstendamm, in a middle class neighborhood (soon to become a queer nightlife hotspot).

With a minimal grant from the Protestant Church (brokered by a sympathetic clergyman who soon established one of Germany’s two church-affiliated film periodicals, the other published by a Catholic media education organization), Sander and von Alemann planned a combination of film festival and women’s movement congress – inviting 45 films made by and about women from seven countries (Western Europe and the US) and 250 female media professionals and women’s movement activists from all walks of life. (At the Q&A following the screening, von Alemann quipped that the media workers and rank and file activists were mutually wary; bringing them into one space aimed to build more trust and sisterhood.) The Arsenal team intensified its support in the months before the event and the elementary school across the street from the cinema provided space for an exhibition and discussions.

One of the attending filmmakers was Vibeke Løkkeberg from Norway. In addition to screening her film Abort (Abortion), Løkkeberg also brought a small crew to document the event. Sadly, Norwegian TV was not interested in commissioning the final film and for almost 50 years, the footage was thought to be lost.

Then, in 2019, the film prints, without sound, were found. At the Arsenal’s Archival Assembly festival in 2023, the silent footage was screened with a live commentary by Sander and von Alemann. Also that year, the sound tapes popped up in the Norwegian National Library, enabling Løkkeberg to complete the film. A 15-minute work in a progress was shown - at the Arsenal – as part of the „feminist elsewheres“ festival which connected the dots between feminist cinema initiatives and issues (filmmaking, but also curating and knowledge production) in November 2023.

Løkkeberg completed the feature-length version, celebrating its world premiere at Forum. The Long Road to the Director’s Chair is an evocative title. It describes the trajectories of so many female filmmakers who cut their teeth (and in some cases chomped at the bit for years) as assistants in all departments, continuity, editors, writers, actresses, ADs, (in rare cases also as DPs, still a largely male profession, and producers) before they had the opportunity to realize their visions. In Løkkeberg’s case, the road was long and winding. As she movingly reminisced at the Q&A, her international career as a director, author and actress was marked by both acclaim and public demonization (apparently largely due to a film about incest and sexual abuse) as well as constant censorship of her documentaries by TV execs.

From left to right: Claudia von Alemann, Helke Sander, Vibeke Løkkeberg photo (c) bpk/Abisag Tüllmann

Through interviews and footage of discussions (formal and informal) the film documents this key event which facilitated important conversations and established networks which persist to present day. The audience participates in several discussions. One topic von Alemann (talkative with funny stand up like delivery), Sander (deadpan) and TV journalists reflect is the double bind women experienced in (not only) media professions: not showing the full range of skills to not threaten male colleagues, remaining non-assertive and yet women who did manage to climb the career ladder often assumed „male“ qualities (and thus becoming less „feminine“). Advancing female colleagues was certainly not on the agenda; one often had to elbow one’s way into the boys club.

Reproductive rights were also a pervasive topic. Ariel Dougherty, filmmaker and co-founder of Women Make Movies, which organized workshops, produced films and is active to this day as a distributor, talks about female reproductive health workshops. The Frauenfilm-Seminar took place almost one year after Roe vs. Wade, thus the attendees from the US offered optimism to their colleagues in European countries where access to abortion was more restricted.

The discussions become even more compelling because the film gives ample time to women listening and processing what they’re hearing – with a wide range of facial expressions and body language. Speaking and listening become equally important.

In addition to its value as a document, The Long Road To The Director’s Chair also creatively and honestly presents the available material and what’s missing. In the beginning, the inclusion of the cameraman remarking (surprisingly cavalierly) that he’s run out of stock establishes the use of sound on a black screen when there are no images. (The sound has been edited seamlessly.) The film takes its time to also capture the atmosphere of the event and women interacting (the few men on view – school employees, friends of attendees – are silently encouraging or stonefaced), footage that other editors might have discarded to focus on the „meat“ of the discussions. Women arriving at the Arsenal on foot or by car, with Løkkeberg interviewing one participant about her expectations for the event, and shots lingering on the women talking among themselves, smoking or looking pensive as they leave frame the film. This heightens the sense of the event’s sustainable after effects.

Løkkeberg eschews the standard lower thirds with names and function of speakers, instead presenting them at the end with short biographies. This allows viewers to focus on what the women are saying and doing in the filmic moment without preconceptions.  Her unconventional subtitling also adds layers of meaning. The subtitles often appear word by word, in rhythm to the speech they’re translating. She also uses a slightly serifed font - subtitles are usually serif free - which makes the them pleasant to read.

From left to right: Forum section head Barbara Wurm, Helke Sander, Ariel Dougherty, Vibeke Løkkeberg, Claudia von Alemann

The film screening and Q&A with Løkkeberg, von Alemann, Sander along with members of „feminist elsewheres“ in the audience, opened up a space where time melted. The audience experienced younger and current selves of the Frauenfilm-Seminar organizers and the director in dialogue. Several generations of cinema activists whose work was sparked by the Frauenfilm-Seminar were present, and this made its connections and reverberations across five decades palpable. The urgency of some issues such as reproductive rights has come full circle, while in others some linear or incremental progress has been made. The event also followed the tone set by Tilda Swinton’s speech at the Berlinale opening ceremony: critical discourse can be respectful and even loving. Hope for these otherwise acrimonious times.

[filmtexts]

Maestro

Okay, I admit that this pun was hard to resist. With his latest film Maestro, writer-producer-director-star Bradley Cooper is back in "the shallow now.” How did he get there?

Flashback to five years ago. The pre-release hype of Cooper’s directorial debut A Star Is Born didn’t pass me by. I had, perhaps as a snap judgement, not placed my the film on my must-see list. First, while acknowledging Bradley Cooper’s respectable work in films such as Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, I don’t avidly follow him like other actors whose presence in even otherwise less remarkable movies are a tipping point to watch them.

Secondly, Cooper and Lady Gaga didn’t appear to be a surefire match. Gaga herself didn’t elicit doubt. While not a fan, I can see why her “little monsters” are so devoted and her musical talent and also acting ability (award-winning turn in one full season of American Horror Story) are undisputed. Yet somehow, the Cooper-Gaga pairing seemed neither no-brainer, nor so weird it’s inspired, just a tad calculated.

Lastly, this is the fourth version (third with songs) of showbiz melodrama A Star Is Born, updating the music to cater to the tastes of a contemporary 55+ audience which in its youth preferred The Eagles and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to The Ramones and The Clash. (Likely over Young and DEVO, or even Pearl Jam, too.) The previous version in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson begat the chart-topping and Oscar-winning song “Evergreen”. Otherwise, the 1970s take was less successful than George Cukor’s radical 1954 reboot (avant la lettre). He reimagined the acclaimed drama from 1937 as a dazzling Hollywood Golden Age musical. The showstopping numbers (motivated as part of a film or stage show within the film) were Judy Garland’s most iconic performances since Wizard of Oz. And in contrast, “offstage” scenes of the doomed central love affair became even more heartwrenching. This ‘revealed’ the disconnect between dream factory and ‘real life’ while such meta-narratives then became another popular Hollywood trope. Cukor and Garland created a classic. Thus, yet another A Star Is Born seemed like diminishing returns.

Then one day, as fate had it, I needed to kill time during a film trade show and A Star Is Born screening filled the empty slot. Low expectations yielded to surprised, genuine delight. Cooper had pulled off a well-crafted and entertaining film. While it would be silly to say “a star is born” in reference to Gaga, her natural and intelligent performance put her on the table for more acting gigs. (In House of Gucci, she was the saving grace.) And of course, there’s ”Shallow,” perhaps more an evergreen than that earlier song of the same name.

So my expectations had risen by the time I first heard about Cooper’s next outing as director-producer-writer-star: Maestro, a biopic about Leonard Bernstein. The legendary composer and conductor’s work and life are a motherlode: innovations in the stage and screen musical, a new approach to symphonic musical performance, making classical music accessible for young people (and generally less elitist), controversial support of progressive causes and a complex private life. The trailer showcased the film’s bold style, alternating between chiaroscuro black and white and sunny, slightly faded color. It also centered upon a lovely romantic moment: Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan) sitting, first as young lovers, then an older married couple, back to back in a park, trying to guess a number the other is thinking of.

The trailer turned out to be a much more satisfying experience than the film itself, although the focus on the relationship foreshadowed things to come. Maestro’s plot boils down to this: how saintly Felicia put up with Lenny’s infidelity with men, until she didn’t anymore. On The Town? A few shots of dancing extras in sailor suits. West Side Story? Mentioned in passing by Felicia as a Romeo and Juliet update, then a few bars of The Prologue play later in the film. It’s supposed to be some sort of “comment” but feels random. Bernstein’s overall impact on music composition, performance and education? If it all, told, not shown and sidelined by Bernstein feeling intermittantly unfulfilled as a conductor and struggling with a dryspell as a composer.

It is Bernstein’s bisexuality that drives the narrative forward. If handled more skillfully, this could have provided insight into the acceptance of homosexuality during the depicted era and the dynamics of polyamorous relationships. Instead, scenes like Felicia forcing Lenny to lie to their daughter when she asks about persistent rumors are poorly written and have little resonance within the story as a whole. We are left in the dark about Lenny’s obliviousness to Felicia’s pain everytime she becomes aware of a new male lover: does he take his unwavering love of Felicia for granted, regardless of other sexual encounters or is he just a cad? After Felicia’s death, Lenny sternly but fairly critiques a male student’s conducting during rehearsal, then cut to them joyously dancing in a club. This image suggests Lenny can separate work and pleasure (no Tár-like abuse of power here). But does this also imply that Felicia’s absence might have set him free (although he “misses her terribly”)? The exploration of Bernstein’s sexuality remains sketchy.

Maestro also fails to spark any passion or curiosity about Bernstein’s music, something that other deeply flawed biopics at least managed. Instead, much screentime is devoted out to Bernstein getting his head around conducting Gustav Mahler’s "Symphony No. 2 in C Minor." No doubt, this was a milestone of Bernstein’s career. But making this a central setpiece and downplaying his return to composition after the aforementioned personal crisis about being “merely” a conductor doesn’t truly do service to the diverse talents Bernstein craved acknowledgment for.

(Musical) biopics are hard to do really well. Many are jerry-built, held together only by the appeal of the portrayed artist and a chameleon-like lead performance. Bohemian Rhapsody, for example, coasts on the appeal of Freddie Mercury and Queen alone, despite accolades for the weakest elements: Rami Malek’s performance and the inexplicably Oscar-winning editing (this video essay presents a convincing case. The film’s editor John Ottman has since defended himself with the film’s turbulent production history.) The more interesting ones often display unconventional choices. Multiple actors (including Cate Blanchett) played Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not Here. Judy (Rupert Goold) and Nico ‘88 (Susanna Nicchiarelli) eschewed the sweeping career arc to focus on the respective singers’ final years, not sensationalist, but restoring some dignity. Many other biopics beg the question, why not watch a documentary with footage of the real artist instead?

As it doesn’t want to go the boilerplate biopic route, Maestro is all the more frustrating. There are many ideas floating around. Sadly, they often fall flat. The use of different 35mm black and white and color film stocks and aspect ratios to depict the various time periods has become overused. The black and white scenes of Felicia and Lenny’s early courtship at one point briefly slide into a musical-style dance/dream sequence, but the execution remains half-baked. Using snatches of Bernstein’s compositions to comment the story sounds good on paper. On screen, the fragments are often too short to really register.

Misfire stylistic choices aside, Maestro is handsomely mounted. The cinematography by Matthew Libatique (who also shot A Star Is Born) is gorgeous, not just the aforementioned use of color but also unusual, evocative camera angles. As for the elephant in the room, Bradley Cooper’s mimicry is uncanny, aided (not only) by convincing prosthetics (the “Jewface” accusations are somewhat unfair; cinematic representation will nevertheless generally remain an issue). Carey Mulligan makes the best of a role that devolves from incandescent to long-suffering. Aside from them, other roles like the Bernstein children or Lenny’s male lovers are underwritten. (Comedienne-actress Sarah Silverman is wasted as Lenny's sister.) With a hot mess of a screenplay at the film’s core, the opulent production values cannot conceal that Cooper’s reach exceeds his grasp. Let’s hope he finds his way out of the shallow for film number three.

[filmtexts]

25th Cottbus Film Festival

November 5, 2015

Until Sunday, November 8th, the city of Cottbus is at the center of the (not only) Eastern European film world with the 25th Cottbus Film Festival. The city in southeastern Brandenburg’s Lausitz region, near the German-Polish border and situated in an area populated by the Slavic Sorb minority, is a geographically and culturally ideal location for presenting Eastern European films and facilitating East-West cultural exchange.

Founded in 1991 by film professionals who gained their first cinephile experiences in the GDR film club scene – a forum for discovering more exotic cinematic fare than in state-regulated mainstream cinemas – the festival has essentially told a history of post socialist transformation on film. The festival’s main mission was and is to showcase the excellence and diversity of films from Eastern Europe (by the festival’s own definition all countries and successor countries of the former Warsaw Pact, from the former GDR to Caucasus and Central Asian former Soviet states). By presenting a broad array of works, including national blockbusters, art house highlights and works by newcomers, the film festival aims to playfully tweak at those Western clichés about post 1989 Eastern Europe: booze, brutality and brass music.

Nebojsa Glogovac and Anica Dobra in BELGRAD RADIO TAXI (The Woman With A Broken Nose) by Srdjan Koljevic

This year, the established Competition (short and feature), National Hits and Spectrum sections are augmented by a special focus on “Eastern Europe of Cities”. The fifth and final focus in a series devoted to diversity in Eastern Europe (previous festival editions focused on queerEast, religions, cultures and regions). Curated by festival program director Bernd Buder and scholar-journalist Barbara Wurm, “Eastern Europe of Cities” presents documentaries and two fiction films exploring various aspects of urban development in Warsaw, Simferopol (Crimea), Kjustendil in Bulgaria, Baku, Sarajevo, Kazan, Kyiv, Moscow, Chisinau, Yerewan and Tiflis. Gentrification, seclusion of marginalized ethnic and other groups, armed conflict, but also alternative culture, celebrations of everyday life and satire of modern big city mores are feature in the program. At the “Grand Hotel Prizren” festival sidebar exhibition, music videos showing urban life in various Central and Eastern European cities are screened.

In the video below (in German), Bernd Buder discusses the background and thematic lines of the program:

The Cottbus Film Festival has a channel on realeyz featuring highlights from past editions. BELGRAD RADIO TAXI is poised to become the urban cult film for the Serbian capital, while KONTROLL is a dark comedy cum thriller set in the Budapest underground train system. And the ever popular SHUTKA BOOK OF RECORDS is a mockumentary about Shutka in Macedonia. The town is purportedly the largest Roma community in the Balkans, its inhabitants have also broken any record known to man. (Sacha Baron Cohen, were you listening?)

For more information about the Cottbus Film Festival, click here.

[filmtexts]

CHRISTIANE F. – Berlin, Bowie and Beyond

June 1, 2014

Many in the international community, from Italy to the Czech Republic, who now call Berlin home, cite “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo“ (Zoo Station. A Memoir) as a book – and film – which decisively shaped their perception of the city. When it was first published in 1978, Christiane Felscherinow’s warts and all description of her life as a teenage heroin addict and prostitute in mid-70s West Berlin was unprecedented. After the initial shock, many parents gave the book to their children (this author included) as a cautionary tale against drugs. “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo” also reinforced the image of highrises as breeding grounds of social dysfunction (Christiane and her single mother had moved from Hamburg to the Gropiusstadt housing project in the Neukölln district). “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo” became West Germany’s to date best-selling postwar non-fiction book and has since been published in 18 countries. It came as no surprise that an enterprising film producer like Bernd Eichinger would snap up the rights. Directed by Uli Edel, the adaptation became a huge international hit – and inadvertently promoted the “heroin chic” aesthetic.

Eternally entwined with the Christiane F. mythology is the music of David Bowie. In the mid-1970s, when the events of the book unfolded, the music Bowie released on his albums “Young Americans” and “Station to Station” was at its most glamorously alienated – robotic funk, chilly Philly soul and the beginnings of Bowie’s electronic experimentation. It captured the imaginations of countless teens like Christiane F.. Bowie is referenced on several occasions throughout the book. In attempt to win her favor, the new boyfriend of Christiane’s mother gave the girl the “Changesonebowie” greatest hits compilation… which she already had. On an unhappier note, after a Bowie concert at the now demolished Deutschlandhalle venue, Christiane took heroin for the first time in 1976.

When bringing the book to the screen, Edel (who replaced Roland Klick shortly before shooting began) and Eichinger sought Bowie’s involvement. He gave permission to use an album’s worth of his songs for the soundtrack which interestingly focused (with the exception of “Station to Station”) on work Bowie made while living in Berlin (to ostensibly kick his cocaine habit) between 1977 and 1979, after the time when the film takes place. Although “Heroes” hadn’t been released when Christiane and her friends were hitting the discos, the film montage sequence in the Ku’damm Eck and Europa Center shopping malls, set to Bowie’s special version with German lyrics (“dann sind wir Helden, für einen Tag”) has become an iconic image of late Cold War West Berlin. Even the fateful Bowie concert is recreated, with a performance at New York’s Hurrah club (at the time Bowie was starring in “The Elephant Man” on Broadway and unable to travel) intercut with footage of fans at an AC/DC concert at the Deutschlandhalle.

Christiane’s admiration of Bowie’s experimentation likely continued to influence her, as her teenage interest in rock led to her own musical endeavors. She became involved with the postpunk/new wave scenes in Berlin and Hamburg, working with future Einstürzende Neubauten members Alexander Hacke and FM Einheit. She released solo and collaborative records (with Hacke) that were recognized beyond her Zoo Station notoriety and starred in the dystopian and oddly prescient sonic mind control thriller “Decoder” (also featuring William Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge), now a minor cult classic. Despite talent and hanging out with one of the most influential crowds in underground culture, sadly, Christiane’s music and acting career never took off.  In 2013 she returned to the public eye in a big way after decades of relapse and rehab cycles with a second book, “Christiane F. – Mein zweites Leben” (Christiane F. – My Second Life). Through her website she recently announced her retirement due to chronic illness. Christiane Felscherinow brought a major social problem into the open, and her honest depiction of her ongoing addiction issues encourages us to examine the allure of dangerous substances that is manifest in our culture. And her story, for better or worse, will forever be one layer of the Berlin mystique that echoes far beyond the city limits.

In cooperation with Exberliner magazine and Lichtblick Kino, this month’s Exblicks Berlin film screening is devoted to Bowie in Berlin. CHRISTIANE F. is showing on June 1 at 8:30 p.m. (with English subtitles), preceded by the documentary “Bowie in Berlin 1976 – 1979” at 6:00 p.m. The evening ends with a retrospective of Bowie’s music videos at 10:30 p.m., presented in cooperation with the short film festival Interfilm.

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The Secret Life of Fruits and Vegetables – The Short Films of Diane Busuttil

January 19, 2014

Yet another artistic expat lured to Berlin, Australian filmmaker, choreographer and performer Diane Busuttil (she might not list those occupations in that same order) is creating a unique body of short film work that incorporates her diverse talents. Busuttil transitioned organically from dance theater to film, as the first film credited to her as a filmmaker, “Living Room Legend”, is a video featuring a TV-addicted housewife (played by Busuttil) shown as part of a theater play. Her subsequent five films as a director – SOUR MASH, DIRT & DESIRE, SUPER POWER, CURDLED and FRESH FRUIT – are all available on realeyz.tv.

Busuttil studied Dance on Film at the University of Western Australia in Sydney. After graduation she performed, choreographed and taught all over the world. She cites the difficulty of breaking into cinema as a choreographer-dancer and the limits for working across artistic disciplines as one reason to leave Australia. In 2000, a DAAD scholarship brought her to Germany, where she studied at the International Women’s University in Hanover and Bremen. She has been based in Berlin since 2001.

Still from DIRT AND DESIRE

“Movement is my first language,” Busuttil has said in a video interview. Movement, both performed by the body and created through cinematic means (editing, camerawork) are key elements of Busuttil’s films. SOUR MASH (2006), shot in a Berlin apartment, begins with two campily made up chicks’ seemingly improvised ramblings into the camera about physical expression, demonstrated then in a solo dance routine performed by Busuttil. Female (and queer) sexuality, another major theme of Busuttil’s work, is foregrounded in DIRT & DESIRE (2009). Shot in black and the white in the style of silent comedies (with jaunty accordeon accompaniment, iris fades, exaggerated facial expressions and hand-written title cards), DIRT & DESIRE stars Busuttil as a farmgirl inviting friends and neighbors to an anything goes dinner party that gives “meat and potatoes” new meaning. Busuttil stuck to black and white for SUPER POWER (2011), but the similarity ends there. Set to raw, energetic electro by Pets on Prozac, SUPER POWER focuses on stop-motion animated headshots of Busuttil and mysterious, sexual flashcuts. CURDLED (2011) explores this further, presenting disorienting extreme close ups of glitter covered body parts, flesh folds and all. FRESH FRUIT (2013) screened at LGBT festivals worldwide and recently won the Taste Award. Carnal desires of all flavors, daydream and reality blur in this luscious fantasy set at a resort in Western Sicily.

Busuttil has recently been awarded a fellowship by AG Kurzfilm, the German short film promotion organization. We look forward to her next work which we hope to feature on realeyz.tv.

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Experimentainment: The Films of Michael Brynntrup

Michael Brynntrup in VERONIKA (vera ikon)

March 14, 2014

Cartoons, clever puns, crossdressing characters, risqué double entendres, genre spoofs… elements you would associate with Comedy Central very much also appear in the works of German experimental filmmaker Michael Brynntrup. A selection of Brynntrup’s key works from 1987 to 2007 will be available exclusively on realeyz.tv.

Michael Brynntrup was born in 1959 and grew up in a Catholic background in Münster, in then West Germany. “Identical twin brother stillborn. Since then studies in Philosophy. The artist lives and works.“ is how Brynntrup summarizes his biography. In fact,  biographical facts figure in varying degrees of abstraction and encryption throughout his work: doppelgänger, mortality and  Wittgenstein-like games with language and representation.  Earlier films deal with religious themes. For the epic “Jesus – der Film” (Jesus – The Film, 1986) Brynntrup commissioned short film vignettes based upon the New Testament from many members of the mid-1980s West Berlin Super 8 underground scene (including realeyz.tv CEO Andreas Wildfang).  Brynntrup screened “Jesus – der Film” in experimental film venues and church clubs alike, to promote dialogue. VERONIKA (VERA IKON), available on realeyz.tv, is a trailer of sorts for Brynntrup’s answer to “The Ten Commandments” and won an honorable mention at the Friedberg Religious Film Festival in 1988. By then, Brynntrup had left the Catholic Church, after constructing a scrap metal altar for the Catholic church in his hometown which was criticized in the clerical press despite winning a government award for art in public space.

Brynntrup in DIE STATIK DER ESELSBRÜCKEN

This biographical fact is presented in 1990’s DIE STATIK DER ESELSBRÜCKEN (The Statics – Engineering Memory Bridges). DIE STATIK DER ESELSBRÜCKEN marks a turning point in Brynntrup’s work. Many ideas explored in earlier films (about the body, identity, mortality) are fully formulated here, while a more detached style is in evidence. In any case, there are as many sight gags, self-referential jokes and plays on words in DIE STATIK DER ESELSBRÜCKEN as in an episode of “30 Rock”.

Helge Musial and Tima the Divine in NARZISS UND ECHO

Sandwiched between those two films is Brynntrup’s early magnum opus, NARZISS UND ECHO (Narcissus and Echo, 1989). Brynntrup stages the Greek legend of love, punishment and communication breakdown as a “riddle film” in a lush Rococo setting, featuring the crème de la crème of the West Berlin drag scene. NARZISS UND ECHO won the German Film Critics’ Association Award for Best Experimental Film but it also puzzled, even polarized audiences. Was “a  film in the form of a riddle is a special kind of entertainment film whereby the film’s content must be deduced from the film’s formal structure“ besides the point in the age of ACT UP? Brynntrup was instrumental in the crystallization of and image production for an activist queer community that responded to the AIDS crisis with humor and humanity. Like Rosa von Praunheim, but with a different aesthetic project (though sharing some actors), Brynntrup was exploring cinema’s role beyond mere documentation and agitprop. In the next weeks, we will be adding more films by Michael Brynntrup to our catalogue, in chronological order of production.

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MÜLLER ECKE AFRIKA – Reallife Tales from the ‘Hood

January 8, 2016

Sometimes the best stories are right outside your door. Filmmaker Martin Helmbrecht, based in Berlin’s working class Wedding district, took this to heart with the three-part  documentary series MÜLLER ECKE AFRIKA (Müller Corner Africa, available with English subtitles on realeyz) he conceived and co-directed with Andy Fiebert. Each episode of MÜLLER ECKE AFRIKA portrays an  inhabitant of  Wedding’s so-called „African Quarter“ (Afrikanisches Viertel), originally planned as a zoological park with streets named after Imperial Germany’s colonial possessions in Africa. World War 1 thwarted these plans, but the street names remained when Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and other modernist architectects built housing projects there in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1990s, migrants from African states such as Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria moved to the quarter, so its name actually reflected somewhat the population. The series‘ protagonists are Rob Stöwe, the owner of a Western-style clothing store; activist-historians Israel Kaunatjike and Mnyaka Sururu Mboro; Syrian musician-composer and music bar proprietor Bakri Maslmani. In the following interview, Martin Helmbrecht talks about the journey of his unique documentary project.

realeyz: What was the inspiration for MÜLLER ECKE AFRIKA?

Martin Helmbrecht: I’ve been living in the neighborhood (“Kiez”) for the past ten years. On my street corner – Lüderitzstrasse and Kameruner Strasse – there has been a considerable transformation during the past two years. New stores open, students move here, street life is becoming more vibrant – the Kiez is awakening from its deep sleep. I wanted to chronicle this process. Observe the people who live here and let them tell their own stories. At the same time, a film job didn’t work out, so I knew I would have less money, but more time. So this was my chance.

How did you choose the protagonists?

The three protagonists personify the three main topics: traditions in the Kiez, history (the German colonial legacy) and the energy newcomers bring. Rob has been living on Kameruner Strasse where his store is since age five. He’s a product of West Berlin times and continues to manage the store his father founded. That’s living tradition.

Israel and Mboro tell about the consequences of German colonial policy, based upon their own experiences. And they can trace the colonial legacy by the street names in the neighborhood. That’s living history.

Bakri didn’t know if the African Quarter was former East or West Berlin or which side of the Wall it was on. That’s why the Wall fell, so that it would not matter anymore which side you were on. Bakri stands for the new energy and commitment he and newcomers generally bring to the Quarter, unencumbered by the past.

How did you research and prepare the series?

If you live here in the neighborhood, then you can hardly overlook Rob’s store. I approached him and he immediately agreed. Israel I knew from a street tour he regularly offers with the “Berlin Postkolonial” association. His connection to Mboro turned out to be perfect for our purposes. Bakri was interviewed in a local paper. When I read it I knew immediately that he’s the guy I need, and he didn’t disappoint me.

How easy or difficult was it to gain the protagonists‘ trust?

Generally easy, except for Bakri. Everyone had something to say or a life experience to share. And they were willing to do that on camera. Bakri, on the other hand, is rather shy and was concerned that if he talked too much about his difficulties with Berlin bureaucracy, this could have negative consequences for him.

Were there any particularly funny or remarkable experiences or even challenges during the shooting?

How we got the hat scene in the Rob episode was really great. We had just done a few shots with Rob. Then he walks towards the camera and puts the hat on. In the background some people were sitting in front of the “Bantou Village” African restaurant which is right next to Rob’s store. To be on the safe side I asked the restaurant patrons if they would mind being seen on camera. The response was very relaxed. They joked that they would really enjoy appearing in the film… if they got hats. So Rob went back into the store and brought out a pile of Stetsons. This became a beautiful image of friendship out of what I originally saw as a stark contrast – a Western store and an African restaurant right next to each other.

How did the protagonists react to the completed films?

Each protagonist saw his film before the public premiere. It was very moving to see father and son Stöwhase watching the film side by side. They kept pinching each in the side and laughing. By the end their eyes were moist. I realized then that something went right. With Israel and Mboro I was a bit afraid that I subtitled two terms they used in German. But that didn’t bother them. Bakri to this day asks me if I could change this or that and never runs out of suggestions.

What was the response at screenings outside of Wedding or even Berlin? Are there plans for new episodes?

The response at the premiere in January was so positive that we still are getting requests for screenings. There was a well attended screening at the Moviemento cinema in Kreuzberg, and rbb public television covered the series.

We’re already producing the next episodes: at least three with female protagonists in the African Quarter, to be completed in 2014. And we will probably update Bakri’s story. His parents fled from Aleppo to Lebanon years ago. Soon they hope to get visa for Germany. They will build a new life here, and we really want to follow those developments.

All four episodes of MÜLLER ECKE AFRIKA (including a new one completed in mid-2015) will be screening on January 18, 2016, 8:30 p.m., at Kino Lichtblick, Kastanienallee 77 in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. There will be a Q&A with Martin Helmbrecht after the screening. Co-sponsored by Exberliner and Kino Lichtblick.

Interview: Natalie Gravenor (first published June 2014)

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Improv Stage As Crime Scene – Axel Ranisch Does Tatort

November 1, 2016

While “quality” and “innovation” seem to be the attributes that US and British TV producers like to define their work as, in Germany “tradition” and “ritual” (as in private, pub and public viewing every Sunday evening at 8:15) are the watchwords – and they probably explain the appeal of weekly (with seasonal hiatuses) detective show “Tatort” (crime scene).

First broadcast in 1970 and gearing up for its 1000th episode on November 13, 2016, “Tatort” takes the federalist public broadcasting system in Germany and turns it into a unique feature of the series. Each state broadcaster has one or two crime-fighting teams that solve cases grounded in the regions they’re based in. That means lots of location shooting and detectives with regional accents and (stereotypical) traits like earthy, tough but tender “Ruhrpötter” Horst Schimanski, operating in Duisburg in the Western German coal-mining Rhein-Ruhr metro area. The hard-drinking, hard-loving and quick-tempered Schimanski, a 1980s departure from the heretofore straitlaced “Tatort” cops, was no less credible as played by the late acting legend Götz George, a native and life-long Berliner. Schimanski was also the first true superstar “Tatort” detective. In the pre-Schimanski era, how many people remember who was on the case in “Reifezeugnis” (1977), which put director Wolfgang Petersen on the map? (Kommissar Finke, played by Klaus Schwarzkopf, investigated.) However, almost everybody remembers the other beneficiary of that episode’s success, then 15 year-old Nastassja Kinski, who played a precocious femme fatale. Even if “Tatort” never had the most intricate plots, it serves as a map and social barometer (issues from child abuse to xenophobia are regularly explored) of the past 45+ years of West and reunited Germany.

To its credit, “Tatort” has tried to flex its dramatic and stylistic muscles, with varying degrees of success. 2014’s Frankfurt set “In Schmerz geboren” (Born in Pain), directed by Florian Schwarz and featuring Ulrich Tukur as Detective Felix Murot and Ulrich Matthes as his best friend turned nemesis Richard Harloff, achieved stratospheric acclaim. But do the show’s makers seriously expect a medal for heavy-handed Shakespeare references and vapid Tarantino knock-offs? Then there have been interesting variations within the detectives‘ characters. Some, like Jan Josef Liefers‘ Professor Boerne, take more than a page or two from the playbook of eccentric yet loveable forensic medicine geniuses in US series from “CSI” to “Bones”, but the comically vain Boerne is great fun to watch in tandem with schlubby yet can-do sidekick Frank Thiel (Axel Prahl as perfect foil). Others like the romantically involved Lessing and Kira Dorn don’t give the otherwise talented Christian Ulmen and Nora Tschirner, who can handle both the comic roles that established their careers as well as more serious fare, much to work with. Now, “Tatort”, the epitome of genre routine, has opened itself up to the free-wheeling improvisational process of director-actor Axel Ranisch.

Ranisch has become one of Germany’s most acclaimed new talents. His body of work includes “Heavy Girls”, famously produced for 517 euros, with support from his grandmother (lovely as one the three leads) and a founding text of the “German Mumblecore” wave of low budget, character-driven films; camp coming out and of age stories (“I Feel Disco”); fairy tales with a twist (“Reuber”) and the surreal addiction psychodrama “Alky Alky”. Ranisch studied under queer cinema icon Rosa von Praunheim at the Media University Konrad Wolf in Potsdam-Babelsberg and has cultivated an improvisational technique and reperatory company (did somebody say Cassavetes or Fassbinder?) centring around Schillertheater alumnus Heiko Pinkowski and acting newcomer Peter Trabner. Pinkowski and Trabner have since become German Mumblecore posterboys, and Trabner worked as improv coach (in ten cast workshops stretched over the course of a year) on the Ranisch “Tatort” episode, intriguingly and onomatopoetically titled “Babbeldasch”.

“Babbeldasch” is Palatine dialect for “blabbermouth” and the name of a (fictitious) dialect theater (shot in the Hemshofschachtel theater) in the southwestern German city of Ludwigshafen. This Rhineland town is the turf of detectives Mario Kopper (Andreas Hoppe), Johanna Stern (Lisa Bitter) and Lena Odenthal (Ulrike Folkerts). Lena Odenthal’s first case was in 1989, as only the third ever female “Tatort” detective. Now after 17 seasons she’s the series‘ senior crimefighter. The Odenthal character, as Folkerts portrays her, has been hailed as a fresh, self-confident, resourceful and well-rounded female role model (while Folkerts was one of the first “out” German female stars). In “Babbeldasch” Folkerts, her fellow “Tatort” cast members and non-professional actors seemingly revel in Ranisch taking them out of their comfort zones: working without a script, shooting in sequence and not knowing the story’s resolution beforehand.

This episode’s mystery involves the death of Sophie Fetter (played by Hemshofschachtel director Marie-Luise Mott), the impresario and diva of “Babbeldasch”. Odenthal and her colleague Peter Becker coincidentally witness the tragic incident while in the audience. What is first diagnosed as a lethal allergic reaction to poppyseed in a chocolate croissant might actually be more sinister. Sophie certainly was involved in enough potentially perilous personal and professional intrigue: a volatile love triangle, disgruntled ensemble members, estranged daughter (Petra Mott, Marie-Luise’s real-life daughter) and a greedy landlord eager to get his hands on the property for which Sophie had a lifelong lease. Odenthal should be off duty to compensate overtime, but Sophie keeps appearing to her in dreams, admonishing her to find the killer. So the next thing we know, Odenthal is undercover, acting a part (of dramatically inclined social worker) amongst the actors. The recurring dream sequences are just one of several well-placed running gags, which also include the improvised care of Johanna Stern’s toddlers and a flu-like bug.

As a “Tatort” episode set in the world of theater and artifice would have it, there’s no shortage of meta moments and fourth-walling. Johanna Stern refers to “Murder On The Orient Express” when she says everyone had a motive and maybe everybody did it all together. Lisa Bitter as Stern then hits the ball out of the park in a hilarious montage sequence of her interrogation of the entire “Babbeldasch” ensemble, keeping her face and the stories straight while wearing an absurd white protective suit. Odenthal also seems to be ever so subtly winking to the audience on some occasions.

At a Q&A after a preview coinciding with the opening of the “1000 Tatorte” exhibition at the Film Museum in Berlin, Folkerts commented that Odenthal is enjoying her life in “Babbeldasch” more than she has been in previous films, and that she hopes that this will continue. Bitter tempered her reportedly negative remarks about the improv process by saying at first the exercises brought back awkward memories of acting school, but then she got into it. Regular “Tatort” viewers also noted Odenthal’s flash new riverside digs, which apparently will be featured in future episodes. (Odenthal’s cat, largely absent in “Babbeldasch”, will return, Folkerts assured the audience.) Most importantly, one hopes that Ranisch’s spirit will sustainably impact “Tatort”’s aesthetic growth – maybe without year-long improv workshops but with a sense of adventure and discovery that the audience can share.

„Babbeldasch“ will be broadcast in early 2017. Watch films by Axel Ranisch on realeyz. The exbition „1000 Tatorte“ is on view until January 17, 2017 at the Museum of Film and Television Berlin.

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Interview mit Maren-Kea Freese

05.07.2014

Die Regisseurin Maren-Kea Freese begleitet seit über 30 Jahren filmisch das Leben in der Großstadt (in der Regel ihre Wahlheimat Berlin) mit lakonischem Humor und Bildern einer rauhen Poesie. Vor ihren preisgekrönten Spielfilmen „Zoe“ (1999) und „Was ich von ihr weiß“ (2006) realisierte sie Kurzfilme, von denen sieben auf realeyz.tv zu sehen sind. Im nachfolgenden Interview spricht Freese über ihre fortdauerende Liebe zum Film und zur Stadt sowie über die Notwendigkeit, Frauen sichtbarer zu machen.

realeyz: Was hat Dich nach Berlin gezogen?

Maren-Kea Freese: Berlin roch irgendwie nach Abenteuern und neuen anderen Möglichkeiten, einem anderen Leben. Ich wollte auch weg von zu Hause, meiner Heimatstadt, – einen Onkel hatte ich in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, bei ihm war ich einmal mit 12 und einmal mit 15 oder so mit einer Schulfreundin.  Obwohl Berlin eine Mauerstadt war, spürte ich schon damals diese Form von Freiheit, Freigeistigkeit, die dort u.a. herrschte. Nach dem Abi, als ich mehr Zeit hatte, besuchte ich eine Freundin, die wegen eines Jobs nach Berlin gegangen war,  in ihrer Kreuzberger WG . Sie war eine wilde Mischung aus Punk, Kunstwillen und Selbstsuche. Wir haben zusammen die Stadt erkundet, viel erlebt, neue Menschen kennengelernt und dabei habe ich mich – wenn man das so sagen kann – in die Stadt verliebt. Da man an der FU neben Theater- und Filmwissenschaften auch Publizistik studieren konnte, war schnell klar –  hier schreib ich mich ein. Im Frühling wurde dann in der WG ein Zimmer frei – mit einem schönen türkisfarbigen Kachelofen, der im Winter dann schwer in der Bedienung wurde.

Warum gerade Film?

In meiner Schulzeit in Köln war ich in der Foto-AG und wir haben uns gern verkleidet – nicht nur zum Karneval. Speziell mit zwei Freundinnen bin ich auch oft ins Kino gegangen. Mit der etwas älteren in die Lupe zu Filmkunst, wie Bergmann und Antonioni und mit der anderen ins Rex am Ring Vampirfilme angucken, weil man danach so schön schlecht schlafen konnte. Wir hatten zu Hause auch lange keinen Fernseher, dann einen zum abschließen. Wenn meine Eltern abends weg waren habe ich mich ans suchen des Schlüssels gemacht . Das ging solange gut, bis mein Vater gefühlt hat, ob der TV-Apparat warm war.

Also Lust am Bild, Spiel und auch irgendwie Verbotenem.

Leider konnte ich nicht so gut zeichnen.  Zeichner wie Sempé, Wilhelm Busch, aber auch aus den 20er Jahren Dix oder Collagen von Hannah Höch habe ich schon als Jugendliche sehr gemocht.  Am Anfang meiner Berlin-Zeit habe ich dann sehr viele Collagen geklebt – auf Postkarten zum verschicken an meine Freunde in Köln und anderswo. Das waren wohl die Anfänge von bewegten Bildern – die ich sozusagen `auf Reisen´ geschickt habe.

Glaubst Du, dass die Stadt Berlin besonders Deine Arbeit geprägt hat? Wenn ja, wie?

Ja. Ich glaube sogar, dass die historische Geschichte der Stadt, teils meine private Geschichte mit beeinflußt, gebremst und beflügelt hat – je nachdem.

Anfangs war ich auf eine neue unbekannte Art auf mich selbst zurückgeworfen, (was natürlich überall passiert wäre).  Habe auch in den 80ern sehr lange allein im Hinterhof in der Nähe vom Kleistpark gewohnt. Da ist die experimentelle Doku SO SIEHT’S AUS entstanden und auch mit der Wiener Freundin Silvia Steindl, die damals in Berlin lebte,  der Kurzfilm TREFFPUNKT ER + SIE – nur in dem einen Berliner Zimmer.  Es gab in der Zeit auch eine tolle Super-8-Film Bewegung, was mich sehr inspiriert hat, selbst etwas zu machen. Die Wiener Freundin hatte im Gleisdreieck*  nach Heiner Müller/ Hamletmaschine etwas mit sich gedreht, sie ist Schauspielerin (*damals ein Kultort für alle  Kreativen einer Gegen-Kultur, da wurde gefilmt, Saxophon gespielt und auch ein Hörspiel v. Tabori, wo ich Praktikantin war, produziert). Das Material haben wir dann nachts, bis in die frühen Morgenstunden zusammen geschnitten und so lernte ich Super-8 kennen.  Sehr bald habe ich mir dann in der Zweiten Hand in Gropiusstadt eine stumme Nizo-Kamera gekauft, bei der immer nachvertont werden mußte, was eine gute Schule war.

Auf die dffb hatte ich schon lange ein Auge geworfen und als ich dann nach meinem Fu-Abschluß da genommen wurde – und dann noch die Mauer aufging, begann für mich eine Ära mit neuen Herausforderungen . Diesen Aufbruch skizziert – politisch als auch privat mein Kurzfilm ZOE, der auch mit einer ersten intensiven Erkundung des Umlandes einher ging. Es gab jetzt eine neue Freiheit, aber es war nicht immer so einfach mit ihr umzugehen und sie zufriedenstellend zu nutzen. Es passierte fast zu viel. In meinem Kurzfilm SPRUNG INS LEERE ist die Hauptfigur in so einer Phase und orientiert sich an Freunden. Das Gefühl habe ich dann auch nochmal anders in meinem langen Berlin-Abschlußfilm `Zoe´ thematisiert, dem ersten Film meiner Trilogie: `Nomadinnen – Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im Falschen´.

Du hast über fast 30 Jahre die Entwicklung und auch Veränderungen in Berlin begleitet. Wie nimmst Du diese Veränderungen wahr?

Ich glaube um sich selbst zu finden, war die Mauerstadt West-Berlin gar nicht schlecht. Hier hatte man eine Ansammlung von schrägen Verweigerern aller Art, viele interessante Angebote und konnte sich, um sich davon zu erholen und es zu verarbeiten immer wieder gut in sein Schneckenhaus zurückziehen. Berlin war in jedem Fall leerer, ruhiger und stärker von Subvention und Idealismus geprägt. Einzig der coole Zeitgeist, der damals herrschte, war letztlich nicht so förderlich und für mich als Kölnerin eher gewöhnungsbedürftig. Vielleicht hatte ich daher viele Freunde, die Schauspieler waren, etwas mit Theater machten oder aus einem anderen Land kamen. Einige haben allerdings die Stadt wegen der Anonymität, die Berlin haben konnte,  wieder verlassen. West-Berlin war auch ein künstliche Stadt, ein Biotop und manchmal wie eine Käseglocke.

Jetzt ist das Klima offener, aber auch kommerzieller – Berlin ist zu einer Art Weltstadt geworden, oft weiss man nicht wer ist Tourist, wer lebt schon hier oder ist kurz davor. Manchmal ist mir das zu viel.  Aber ein richtiges Umland mit Bewohnern zu haben fühlt sich sehr richtig an – auch wenn wir aus unterschiedlichen Ländern kommen, wie mir immer wieder klar wird. Mein dritter Langfilm handelt  von einer Frau, die daher kommt. Und wie es immer so passiert, findet sich dabei auch wieder `Das Eigene im Fremden´ – auch einer der Gründe nach Berlin zu gehen.

Nach vielen Stationen bin ich jetzt wieder am Ort meiner Anfänge, in Kreuzberg-ehemals-36, gelandet und hoffe nun inständigst mir möglichst lange die Miete noch leisten zu können.

Vorwiegend stehen Frauen im Mittelpunkt Deiner Filme. Bewußte Entscheidung? Wenn ja, warum?

Da ich selbst eine Frau bin, klappt es erstmal mit der Einfühlung in Figuren automatischer. Ich gehe ja immer erstmal von mir aus, bin sozusagen der Filter, und bleibe dann dabei. Es sind ja auch meistens Gefühle, Zustände, die ich kenne oder in anderer Form erlebt habe. Natürlich könnte ich sie auch in eine männliche Figur transferieren, aber das hat sich bisher erst zweimal ergeben.

Ich empfinde Frauen aber auch immer noch als  „unsichtbarer“ in bestimmten Bereichen der Gesellschaft – in der Filmbranche bei den Regisseurinnen und Kamerafrauen z.B. und generell an zweiter Stelle – bei der Bezahlung sowieso.  Das hat äußere und innere Gründe. Durch Deformierungen in der Erziehung nehmen sich Frauen immer noch mehr zurück,  knüppeln sich durch übertriebene Selbstkritik in den Boden, preisen sich weniger an, suchen andere Ventile für ihre Verwirklichungsansprüche und lassen auch so Männern den Vortritt.

Wahrscheinlich sind es auch immer wieder Beweise – mir und der Welt gegenüber: Ja mich/Uns gibt es – schaut mal genauer hin!

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Interview with Rosa von Praunheim

July 4, 2016

An edited version of this interview appeared in Exberliner Magazine (April 2015) to coincide with the theatrical release of his most recent film TOUGH LOVE and an accompanying ten film homage at Berlin’s Lichtblick cinema.

Without filmmaker and (recent Bundesverdienstkreuz recipient) Rosa von Praunheim’s gamechanging films and controversial media interventions – he practically invented the outing of public figures as a response to the stigmatization of homosexuals in the 1980s and 90s due to the Aids crisis – gay life today might be very different. His important body of work over nearly five decades includes everything from camp satire of bourgeois morals (“Die Bettwurst”), gay liberation manifestos (“Not the Homosexual Is Perverse, But the Society He Lives In”), activist films (“The AIDS Trilogy”) and a collection documentaries and fictionalized biographies about famous and everyday people embodying various aspects of gay identities: from superstar cartoonist Ralf König (“King of Comics”), expat trannies in 80s West Berlin (“City of Lost Souls”), pioneering sexologist and Nazi victim Magnus Hirschfeld (“The Einstein of Sex”) and East German queer icon Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, later discredited as a Stasi informer (“I Am My Own Woman”) to “Rent Boys of Bahnhof Zoo” and gay concentration camp survivors (“A Life in Vain – Walter Schwarze”). At 72, von Praunheim is still going strong – he teaches film at Potsdam’s Media University “Konrad Wolf” – one of his prize students is Axel Ranisch – while maintaining a very regular output, still making relevant and engaging films while ever raising the bar for himself. Von Praunheim speaks about different forms of capturing real life stories on film, what issues he feels are relevant to the LGBT community and his take on gender relations (though he might not use that term…).

Still Tough Love with Hanno Koffler and Andreas Marquardt

Von Praunheim’s most recent film, TOUGH LOVE is a docudrama about former Berlin pimp Andreas Marquardt, a particularly rough customer who was the victim of physical and sexual abuse from his father and mother. After a stint in Tegel Prison and some psychotherapy he opened a martial arts school and teaches karate to underprivileged Neukölln kids. Marquardt later published his memoirs, co-written with psychotherapist Jürgen Lemke. As it fate has it, Lemke is a good friend of Praunheim’s, and that’s how he came to tell this particular story.

The film features interviews with Marquardt and fictional sequences with him played by actor Hanno Koffler. How did Praunheim come to choose the mixture of fact and fiction? “It’s more believable if you see the real person, to underline that it’s a true story and not fictional.” Praunheim didn’t want to do a straight documentary about Marquardt “because there already were documentaries about Andreas Marquardt after the book about him came out. I was interested in a fiction film with documentary elements.” Marquardt was easily won over, as he feels comfortable with opening up, but Marquardt’s longtime companion, Marion Erdmann (played by Luise Heyer in the film), another major character in the story, “was more shy and anxious. She doesn’t push herself into the limelight. But she did it for his sake,” Praunheim explains. Erdmann was one of Marquardt’s underage prostitutes and yet stuck with Marquardt through thick and thin.

TOUGH LOVE is a departure thematically for Praunheim, and yet like his earlier work, it illuminates gender relations, just from a different angle. How does this all fit together? “Andreas Marquardt is a macho, “ Praunheim starts to elaborate. “He took up karate which is a tough sport and is very successful at it. He’s a legend in the world of sports. So he’s lived his whole life with incredible toughness. And now it’s hard to make him understand what this machismo means. It’s his life. And his life is determined by his hatred of women which resulted from the sexual abuse by his mother.” But Marquardt was able at some point to admit weakness and seek help. “That has to with his being in jail. He didn’t want to stay there forever and needed to talk about himself. And that worked out very well.” And what about Marion, who on the surface seems incredibly docile but also displays flashes of strength? Praunheim is not so convinced. “While he as in jail, she did take care of the gym and managed his whole livelihood. But she did it all for him. I think today it’s still the case that the lives of many women center around doing everything for their men. One psychiatrist said that ‘Tough Love’ is an instructional film for women who still make themselves entirely dependent on men. Marion and Andreas don’t have any children, with women who do it’s even more tragic. It’s still a part of women’s traditional role to behave masochistically towards the man, despite tragedy, difficulties and humiliation.”

And what about alternatives to traditional role models. Like gay marriage, for example? “I personally don’t believe in gay marriage”, says Praunheim. “I will never marry my boyfriend. I see the tragedy of many heterosexual couples when they get divorced, for both women and men. Everyone should be warned.” Is gay marriage just assimilation into middle class values? “Adapting to middle class values is [inevitable], whether it’s gays becoming religious, joining the army or adopting children, it’s not my bag. As for children, those who want to have them – I think it’s mostly lesbian couples – I think it’s wonderful. I have nothing against children. I also think it’s good for stable gay couples. But I personally don’t have such a connection to family so I can’t really say anything.”

So has the desire for a certain assimilation into dominant culture dulled the edge of LGBT activism? “The moment you have become more integrated into society and you experience less repression, then there’s less reason to fight or be active politically. But I think that’s the general climate. My heterosexual students are also not politically or socially active because there is a certain level of wealth. Egoism and individual goals are in the foreground.” One issue that Praunheim thinks is high priority is the difficulties young people continue to experience when coming out. ”Especially in puberty, they just want to belong and be like everyone else,“ Praunheim explains. “If you belong to minority it’s difficult especially where their classmates who come from backgrounds where homophobia is very dominant. That’s a big problem.” How can this be changed? “It already starts in kindergarten. There should be schoolbooks openly discussing homophobia and racism as the two are related, and also what it means to be different. That’s a very important part of education. Accepting difference and starting early on to discuss these gender roles. It’s important that students come in contact with openly gay and lesbian teachers and this is supported officially. Of course it’s difficult. If there are Muslim students in class who replicate the homophobia of their families.” I ask if he thinks that a certain solidarity or coalition among marginalized groups, which gays and Muslims both are, has eroded or if this solidarity was a pipe dream to begin with. “Devout Muslims would not appreciate it if homosexuals would express solidarity. Can’t imagine it. Various marginalized groups can only express solidarity with others when they are themselves emancipated. But as long as women are still oppressed in Islam there won’t be any solidarity.”

As for female equality here in Germany, exemplified by the recent discussion at the Berlinale about a female directors quota, Praunheim believes, “I hope that the female director quota will encourage women to become more ambitious if they receive the support. I’m all for it.” But he doesn’t see women’s disadvantages as being entirely the fault of structural inequality. “Art has something to with talent. Not everyone is. It’s not a democratic medium. I can’t say I’m an artist and have painted a picture, so I’m entitled to be exhibited or have my book published. You need talent, hard work, great interest and the ability to achieve your goals. Most people are lazy. I know it’s provocative, but this unfortunately also applies for lesbians. Unfortunately, women are less ambitious. One female filmmaker told me that women have more multi-faceted interests than just filmmaking and career advancement. They are more versatile and less singleminded. Men are more goal-oriented; when they want something, they think they’re the greatest and try to push it through. You need lots of energy. If you don’t have it then it won’t work.” He candidly continues, “Women are still too private and very timid about being in the public sphere. Non-lesbian women experience less discrimination, nevertheless I think the timidity on the part of lesbian women is related to the oppression of women in general. Women grow up in more fear.” Is this specifically a German problem? Praunheim answers, “I think that women in America have a more emancipated upbringing. At least in middle-class families, children are told more often that they’re great and that they achieve what they want to, both male and female children. More confidence is placed in individuals that they can achieve their goals. In Europe children are told you can’t do anything or you’re stupid. Only if you work really, really hard will you become successful. And this is especially the case for women, that they don’t think they’re up to certain challenges.” He shares this experience, “I’m a member of the Academy of Arts, a somewhat elitist artists association. The governing board is made up of women, but there aren’t many female members. And even women don’t elect other women as new members. And the same with the film business – there are hundreds of female producers, writers and script consultants, but very few female directors. There are actresses who say ‘I don’t want to work with a female director.’ It’s tragic that women are often very anti-woman.” He nevertheless ends this line of questioning on a somewhat hopeful note: “I can’t generalize, but I wish women would become more self-confident and really use their talent. But things are changing.”

Still from City of Lost Souls (1983) with Angie Stardust and Jayne County

Beyond the bipolar model, what is von Praunheim’s take on gender identity? “Gender studies is the domain of lesbian women and feminists. There are hardly any men in that field. I’ve read about and discussed it, but I’m not a theoretician,“ he says. “Of course I’m against any discrimination of people who don’t conform to the gender mainstream, man-woman, and tolerance and acceptance should be encouraged early on. In my film “New York Memories”, there is a 12 year old born as a girl, who posts on YouTube that he wants to be a boy. It turns out that lots of young people already know when they’re five or so that they don’t belong to to the gender they were born as. I think it’s good that are platforms on the internet where these kids can get mutual encouragement.” He sums up with concern and admiration, “But it will always be difficult to place oneself outside the norm, a martyrium. It’s not like a drag queen putting on a dress and dancing at the carnival. It takes a lot of inner strength.”

Praunheim has lived and worked in Berlin since the mid-1960s, experienced the full spectrum of changes throughout the years. Has he ever considered leaving? “Between 1971 and 1995 I lived a lot of the time in New York, made many films there,” he remembers. But Berlin will always be his homebase. “We’ve become more international. There are very interesting and creative subcultures of all kinds. The rents are still relatively low and the quality of life very high in comparison to other European capitals. Berlin is very appreciated. It’s the most creative metropolis and has surpassed New York because the rents are so high and no one can afford to live there. Berlin is better than ever.”

Interview: Natalie Gravenor

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R.I.P. Chantal Akerman

October 7, 2015

Death is like taxes, and “thanks“ to social media there is no dearth of reports of cherished personalities exiting at a ripe old age and/or far too young. But the news of Chantal Akerman’s passing put a particular pall over yesterday.

Akerman was a filmmaker who decisively influenced the way I think about cinema and what its relationship to life and society can (and should) be. My first encounter with her was not one of her films, but her singular public persona – sarcastic and garrulous. It was in the early 90s, a group of college friends and I were incensed at the invisibility and lack of career opportunities for women in media as an indicator of general inequality. We channeled this sense of injustice into a project that entailed creating a space on TV to screen new work female directors and research about why they had tougher going than their male counterparts, especially supposedly with audiences, which industry captains then used as a justification for not hiring women. As part of this research we watched an informative doc called “Women Making Movies“ which interviewed female helmers working in Hollywood (then as now a select few), U.S. indies and European art house cinema. Of course all the pioneers and icons were profiled: Kathryn Bigelow, Susan Seidelman, Lizzie Borden, Martha Coolidge, Agnès Varda and naturally, Akerman. Her terse answer to a question about feminism in her work was “I don’t make feminist films, I make Chantal Akerman films!“ A brilliant retort coming from a director who created the seminal “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” (1975), to this day an amazing film that like few others shows the experience of women relegated solely to the role of homemaker and mother and how social relations had become commodified. The film’s long duration (201 minutes) and long takes not just stated things about the mundanity of housework, they made the viewer actually feel it. (In a recent interview, Akerman said that her use of slow montage also serves to empower the viewer – to create his or her own film by minimizing authorial imposition.)

Chantal Akerman in “Je, tu, il, elle”

Akerman intrigued me, so when soon after I had watched the documentary her 1975 feature debut “Je, tu, il, elle” was playing at the cinemathèque-like Arsenal in Berlin (pre-move to Potsdamer Platz, at its funkier Schöneberg location near the KaDeWe department store and gay clubs), I dragged an elementary school friend visiting from out of town to see it. Said friend is very smart and open to checking out new things, although her film tastes were more mainstream, so she cheerfully went along. The film was a trip, as I had never seen anything like it before (even at this point, where I had some exposure to experimental cinema and had been watching indies since my teens in the mid-80s). The black and white, seemingly off the cuff film belied a very clear structure. Akerman herself delivered a monologue, eating powdered sugar from a paper bag while wondering about which color to paint her room (musing about shades of blue or green in a black and white film was absurdly hilarious and at least for me posed questions about the nature of color and vision). This was followed by an awkward encounter between Akerman and a female lover and Akerman having a quickie with a male trucker, played by Niels Arestrup, as I much, much later found out. Any image of lesbian desire was very interesting to me because of its relative scarcity back then, and my straight schoolfriend had also always been bi-curious, largely only in theory. Nevertheless, I was a bit concerned that she might be irked that we wasted our only chance to meet in Berlin on some weird film. After the screening was over, we had a coffee somewhere nearby. We talked for hours about “Je, tu, il, elle”, its depiction of sexuality and flaunting of narrative conventions (our favorite: Akerman breaking the fourth wall by looking straight into the camera and giggling during the trucker episode, like an outtake that was left in.) My friend still enjoys especially mainstream films, yet years later she mentioned how “Je, tu, il, elle” really stuck in her mind – in a good way.

So the news had reached me, too – Akerman was one of the most innovative and versatile (no gender qualifier here) filmmakers to work with the medium, period. I sadly still haven’t seen all her work – an endeavor that’s high on my to do list – but what I have seen was mostly staggering. My particular favorites were the postmodern musical “Golden Eighties” (1986) and its companion “Les années 80” (1983), a “making of” of sorts which chronicled the auditions, and the early shorts “Saute ma ville” (1968) and “La chambre” (1972). Akerman also was equally adept in documentary and essayistic works. “Un jour Pina m’a demandé” (1983) saw her beat Klaus Wildenhahn hands down in the Pina Bausch documentary duel, almost 30 years before Wim Wenders dropped his “Pina” tribute. “D’ Est” (1993), a road movie exploring Eastern Europe in the first years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, brought a welcome anthropological, formalist, yet also humanistic view that was largely absent in the stridently triumphalist ideology of much work about “New Europe” during that time. “De l’autre côté” (2002), her investigation of the border between Mexico and the United States, was also shown as a video installation. Akerman thus found a more hospitable home in the art world, as art house cinema had become less nurturing for uncategorizable talents like herself. Along with Harun Farocki, she is, in my opinion, the filmmaker to most successfully accomplish the transition from black box to white cube, truly thinking spatially and not just projecting a video conceived for other viewing situations upon a gallery wall. The only headscratcher in Akerman’s art career was presenting “Jeanne Dielman” as an installation. The whole point of “Dielman” was to mercilessly submit the viewer to real time – as boring, painful but also meditatively inspiring that experience could be. A gallery visitor catching a few minutes of Delphine Seyrig cleaning the kitchen in passing before moving on restlessly to the next exhibit seemed to defeat the purpose.

Free spirit Juliette Binoche analyzes shrink William Hurt in “Un divan à New York”

Despite the genre’s often very strict, often geometrical plot patterns, the almost mainstream romantic comedy was the only realm that seemingly eluded Akerman’s brilliance. “Nuit et jour” (1991) had a promising plot – a woman who divides her time between two lovers, one works by day, one at night – but was ultimately sunk by three rather forgettable leads. “Un divan à New York” (1996) boasted the star power of Juliette Binoche and William Hurt as a lovesick Parisian and a put upon New York analyst who trade apartments and lives. “Demain on déménage” (2004) was equally uneven. But thanks to some presumably autobiographical elements concerning the mother-daughter relationship – Akerman’s mother Natalia, a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor, has figured strongly in her work, notably “News From Home” (1977) to Akerman’s final film “No Home Movie” (2015) – and fine performances by Sylvie Testud as an Akerman-alter-ego and French screen legend Aurore Clément, the film somehow rang true. The year Akerman presented the film at Berlinale, I was working for the official festival magazine. I was very excited that I was assigned to interview her. It was a bit intimidating, but ultimately enjoyable, with Akerman countering questions and interpretations she found off with a raucous “mais non!”

From “Portrait d’une paresseuse”

The Akerman film I most cherish is the short “Portait d’une paresseuse” (1987), her contribution to an omnibus film about the seven deadly sins, entirely directed by female filmmakers – Akerman was in the company of Ulrike Ottinger, Helma Sanders Brahms, Bette Gordon, Maxi Cohen, Helke Sander and Valie Export. The “lazy woman” of the title is Akerman herself, struggling to overcome her inertia – for her, the filmmaking process begins with getting out of bed, washing, dressing. In retrospect, I see this wickedly funny and meta miniature with a twinge of sadness, considering the depression Akerman reportedly struggled with, barely keeping it check with therapy and her ever boundary testing work, right until her death. “No Home Movie” premiered at Locarno – to mixed reviews, but isn’t that often a sign of a work’s power to engage? – and on October 7 played at the New York Film Festival. Even if Akerman had left us only her 70s and 80s milestones, the loss would hurt. But seeing she was still in the full throes of creativity, and her sharp, inquisitive, witty persona was so present in much of her work – on camera or as offscreen narrator, interlocutor or interrogator –  it feels almost like someone we know personally and like is now suddenly gone.

[filmtexts]

On Location In Prenzlauer Berg With Bright Blue Gorilla

August 28, 2015

Bright Blue Gorilla is back! The globetrotting musical and filmmaking duo of Los Angelenos Robyn Rosenkrantz und Michael Glover is shooting their sixth low budget feature, “Mr. Rudolpho’s Jubilee”, in Italy and Berlin. “Mr. Rudolpho’s Jubilee” is the second Bright Blue Gorilla opus to be set in Berlin (earlier comedies KARATE FILM CAFÉ and LOSE WITH ENGLISH had Berlin-shot footage but were set elsewhere; furthermore, Glover and Rosenkratz usually edit the films here in Berlin). BBG No. 5, GO WITH LE FLO, is a cross-cultural romantic comedy about a half German, half French delicatessen owner who’s lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. “Mr. Rudolpho’s Jubilee” promises to fulfill the laugh quotient, but weightier themes are creeping into the Gorillas’ scripts: gentrification, political activism and fashion. Oh well, two out of three ain’t bad…

This time round, German top-tier actress Christiane Paul joins the cast as the female lead, Anja. The story centers around Mr. Rudolpho, an Italian fashion designer who decides to commit suicide during Berlin Fashion Week. Instead, he falls in with a group of bohemians who introduce him to another, less superficial side of the city. The film features the fashion of Berlin-based designer Gregor Marvel.

Last week, the Gorillas shot a key scene on the distinctive bridge over the S-Bahn tracks connecting Kopenhagener Straße and Dänenstraße. Here are some photographic impressions.

Actress Valeria Ferraro and actor Tony Moore in the makeup chair with Vanessa Grosseschallau and Vanessa Marr.

Assistant cameraman David Gaiser works with director Michael Glover.

Christiane Paul (Anja) and star Francesco Mazzini (Mr. Rudolpho) exiting a scene.

Actor Tony Moore, who plays English hitman Colin, looks on during filming.

It’s a wrap! Some members of the multi-national crew: (from left to right): Michael Glover, Tanya Sell, Robert Rogers, Winfried Goos, Robyn Rosenkrantz, Michael Rothmann, Tony Moore, Joshua Merkl, Vanessa Marr, Enes Dogan.

“Mr. Rudolpho’s Jubilee” is shooting throughout the summer and slated to open in 2016. Until then: keep calm and share your bananas, as the Gorillas would say.

Watch Bright Blue Gorilla’s earlier films on realeyz.

[filmtexts]

VINYAN – The Visual Worlds of Benoît Debie

September 19, 2014

Recently, I watched two quite different films – the rock biopic “The Runaways“ and the subtle psychological horror film VINYAN which coincidentally turned out to have a connection. What do music video director Floria Sigismondi’s effective recreation of the mid-70s sleaze and glam scene in L.A. and a hallucinatory journey into the jungles of Thailand and Burma have in common?  Both films were shot by Belgian cinematographer Benoît Debie.

Debie has created the imagery of several remarkable films of the last decade and a half. He has become to enfant terrible Gaspar Noé what Michael Ballhaus was to Martin Scorsese. Debie shot Noé’s controversial (and in some countries banned), ultra-violent reverse chronological rape revenge drama “Irreversible” (2002) and follow up “Enter the Void” (2009), a neon-lit, amphetamine-fuelled headtrip set in Tokyo and told from the point of the view of the recently deceased main character. Day-glo colors also define Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” (2013), the divisive Bildungsroman, if you will, about four disaffected young women who use money from a restaurant heist to head to Fort Lauderdale for the annual bacchanale of sex and drugs, with hip hop and dubstep (well, Skrillex…) standing in for rock ‘n’ roll. Critics and audiences either slammed the film as exploitative trash or praised Korine for critiquing consumer culture without ridiculing the female lead characters. Almost universally acclaimed was Debie’s hyperkinetic cinematography.

VINYAN (2008), Debie’s second of three collaborations with director Fabrice du Welz (released between du Welz’s 2004 debut “Calvaire” and 2014 crime drama “Colt 45”) , makes entirely different use of exotic locales. The film tells the story of Paul and Jeanne Bellmer (Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Béart, displaying the English language skills that netted her parts in such Hollywood flicks as “Mission: Impossible”), a wealthy philanthropic couple who lost their son in the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. Six months after the disaster, Paul seems to have accepted Joshua’s likely death. But when Jeanne sees a boy wearing a similar soccer jersey to Joshua’s in a video of kidnapped children in Burma, she decides to search for her son. The only way into Burma is with the help of the Triad, so the well-mannered but inscrutable mobster Thaksin Gao (Petch Osathanugrah) is enlisted. In the course of the journey, Jeanne and Paul, but even Thaksin Gao and his loyal lieutenant Sonchin fall apart in the netherworld of the Burmese jungle. Who is really the “vinyan”, a Thai term for restless undead spirit? With its themes of grief, guilt and the disintegration of “civilization”, VINYAN evokes “Apocalypse Now”, “Don’t Look Now”, “Lord of the Flies” and even Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer”  without feeling derivative. (The likewise not dissimilar ANTICHRIST was released the following year.) Debie’s de-saturated and humid cinematography makes the oppressive, disorienting atmosphere of the jungle palpable. He creates a both hyperrealistic and highly allegorical, archaic world of great beauty and menace.

Debie’s next outings are Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut “Lost River” and “Everything Will Be Fine”, Wim Wenders’ first narrative feature since 2008’s “Palermo Shooting”. Surreal neo-noir “Lost River” showcases flames and fire imagery as VINYAN did water, rain and moisture. “Everything Will Be Fine” sees Debie work in 3D for the first time. Debie’s talent lies in both his signature style and his versatility as he conjures a variety of unique cinematic worlds.

[filmtexts]

Detroit: Been Down So Long, It Looks Up to Me

October 15, 2014

In 2013, Detroit, Michigan became the largest U.S. city ever to file for bankruptcy. As of September 2014, it seemed that the worst might be over. Detroit’s city council voted unanimously to transfer power for all day-to-day decisions back to the city’s elected officials while continuing to work with the emergency manager appointed by the state of Michigan. Controversial decisions such as cutting off the water supply to tenants who haven’t paid their bills (or are unable to) led to a United Nations reprimand, and there is dispute about how to deal with the pension fund deficit – slash payments causing considerable deprivation or covering the pensions with monies that would otherwise pay off debts. These issues notwithstanding, the mood in the city is more hopeful than it has been in years, and this is also affecting creditors’ attitudes.

Completed in 2011, Thierry Derouet’s doc DETROIT: THE BANKRUPTCY OF A SYMBOL charts the city’s long, steady decline, which culminated in the insolvency hearings, while paying tribute to the resilience of some inhabitants striving to turn Detroit’s fortunes around.

The single most striking image in the film, perhaps even more than the shots of dilapidated buildings overgrown with weeds, is a population graph. At the height of its urban development around 1950, Detroit had 1.8 million inhabitants and was the world capital of automobile production. By 2011, the curve had dipped to under 750,000 inhabitants (2014 figures cite 690,000) – below the eligibility level for federal aid to distressed municipalities. What happened?

Detroit was a success story of the industrial era. In 1903, the Ford Motor Company was founded  there. From then on, the city’s destiny became entwined with the growth of the automobile industry, arguably the defining business of the industrial age. Other car companies also opened in Detroit. With the headquarters and major production plants of the “Big Three” car manufacturers Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, Detroit became the automobile capital of the world, nicknamed the “Motor City” (or “Motown”, as former car assembly line worker Berry Gordy named his legendary record label). The car companies were also heavily involved in arms production, so during World War II, in Detroit hundreds of thousands of African American workers from the South settled in with the previous generation of (largely Eastern) European immigrants. Already in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the post World War II economic boom achievements began to dissipate. First, U.S. made cars lost out to smaller, more fuel-efficient Japanese (and later South Korean made) models in the low price segment, while German manufacturers like Mercedes and BMW cornered the higher end of the market. Then, the 1973 energy crisis hit. The automobile industry was Detroit’s monoculture, so when it crumbled, it dragged the city’s economy down with it. Ironically, the automobile-driven suburbanization of Detroit led to flight of affluent, largely white, people from the city center, taking their tax dollars with them and further draining the city’s coffers. Vicious cycles and downward spirals abounded. The 2007/2008 sub prime loan meltdown merely exacerbated the urban blight.

Factory closings led to not just single buildings, but whole neighborhoods being razed to the ground, creating veritable holes that cut off parts of city from each other. Abandoned buildings were reclaimed by nature in the form of uncontrolled weed growth. Basic services such transportation, water and power supply became sporadic, crime rates increased as the city became harder and harder to police. The standard of living in some parts of Detroit was almost comparable to that of some developing countries.

When you’ve hit rock bottom, the only way is up. The film’s most inspiring moments are interviews with ordinary citizens with extraordinary commitment to their city. They tend community gardens in the huge vacant lots, set up playgrounds for children with special needs, offer employment opportunities with small businesses such as natural haircare salons and organic bakeries. They tirelessly network and advocate solidarity and change. Detroit’s music scenes have also contributed to both spiritual and economic renewal. Techno, the product of disused urban spaces and the shift from an industrial to technological information economy, attracts hundreds of thousands of music fans to festivals like the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (canceled in 2014 to due highway construction near the venue). And yet internationally renowned techno DJ Carl Craig, interviewed in the film, feels that since the festival’s inception in 2000, “the city should have grown quite a lot more.” He appeals to enterprising, adventurous souls from different cultures to get something going, citing the low real estate prices. Jérôme, a real estate developer from France, has seemingly heeded Craig’s call. He bought a building on Cadillac Boulevard in the eastern part of town for $ 21,000 and is now creating apartments and commercial spaces. Normally, the gentrification alarm bells would go off, but in Detroit’s case, any first step is better than nothing.

“This is the Motor City, and this what we do.” Detroit native son Eminem’s commercial for Chrysler. 16 million+ views on YouTube, record ratings during its Super Bowl broadcast, impact on sales?

The film ends on a cautiously optimistic note, reiterating the interviewees’ determination to make things work. The filmmakers note that over 100 municipalities in the U.S. are facing similar urban collapse and more will likely follow – Detroit could serve as an inspiration and model for coping and problem solving. How about a post-2014 update along the lines of “Detroit: Recovery of a Symbol”? Or “Symbol of a Recovery”?

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THE GRATEFUL DEAD MOVIE – Next Best Thing to Being There

July 20, 2014

The Grateful Dead inspire admiration and devotion equaled only by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Bob Dylan. Their record sales were solid, if not chart-topping; the live concert was their medium for getting the music out to the fans. Unlike many other successful acts, the Grateful Dead varied their set lists from show to show and never played a song the same way twice. Each live performance was a unique experience. This unusual approach to live performance stems from the Deads’ stint as the house band for Ken Kesey’s Acid Test happenings in the mid-1960s. Fans, soon known as Deadheads, starting traveling with the band from gig to gig for a new experience every night. The Deadheads were not just spectators but co-creators of the transcendent live atmosphere. The Grateful Dead were one of the few rock acts to truly bridge the divide between performer and fan without resorting to cheesy singalongs, confrontational tactics or faux chumminess.

Consequently, the best introduction to the Grateful Dead is a concert film. THE GRATEFUL DEAD MOVIE (1977) is culled from five sold out shows at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in 1974. The movie breaks the mold of concert documentaries in many ways. It begins with a trippy seven minute animated sequence by Gary Guiterriez, set to the Dead song “U.S. Blues”, which references images from Grateful Dead posters and album covers like the American Beauty rose, skull, cacti and choppers and introduces, in reference to the song’s lyrics, the Uncle Sam skeleton. After a cartoon Statue of Liberty frees multiple skeletons from prison by torching the bars, the animation transitions into live action concert footage with an ingenious sequence of fire, sparks and stage lights.

From then on, it’s elegantly filmed and edited scenes of the Dead jamming. Their mixture of rock, bluegrass, boogie, free jazz, non-European classical and ambient music avant la lettre is largely improvised, yet performed with discipline and virtuosity. Seen almost as often as the band is the audience. Unlike often gratuitous crowd shots in other live documentaries, the Deadheads’ short appearances are memorable. They seem to be truly on the same wavelength with the Dead – they feed off each other.

The backstage scenes are also on a different level – neither stars’ self-aggrandizement nor accidentally capturing a catastrophe in the making (“Gimme Shelter” which documented a murder at a Rolling Stones concert and its aftermath). Instead, Deadheads reveal their motivation for following the band, stay mellow when trying to get into a sold out show (policemen didn’t mind being assigned to Dead concerts because they were generally without incident, at least until the late 1980s) and discuss overpriced merch. Band members and roadies weigh options for dealing with the notorious motorcycle gang Hell’s Angels (one of whom was responsible for the murder in “Gimme Shelter”) who are planning to come to the show. Bassist Phil Lesh demonstrates an electronic bass that can pick up sounds, filter them and play them back, a proto-sampler. Singer-guitarist Jerry Garcia (who co-directed the film) in his laidback, “okay, man” way gets a scene staged the way he wants.

The film ends as it began, on a psychedelic note. Band members and fans enjoy a hookah’s worth of hash backstage, the sound becomes increasingly distorted and the images rotate and are superimposed to reflect the onsetting high. Then cut to the Dead performing an extended jam of “Morning Dew”. The band and the audience are playing and dancing themselves into an altered state. The emotional intensity peaks, then the tension is relieved with a short, tight encore, a cover version of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”. THE GRATEFUL DEAD MOVIE is a milestone of concert documentaries that appeals not only to fans but anyone who is interested in rock music.

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The Fall and Rise of A BAND CALLED DEATH

July 24, 2014

Detroit Rock City: the town that brought the world John Lee Hooker, Motown, MC5 (MC is an abbreviation for Motor City, Detroit’s nickname), Alice Cooper, George Clinton and P-Funk, Madonna (although she went to New York to make it big), techno, Eminem and the White Stripes. While Detroit was still the world capital of the automobile industry in the mid to late 20th century, Motown label mogul Berry Gordy recruited talent from the assembly lines and applied some Fordist work principles to the production of records. When the city fell into a long decline along with the car companies and main employers like Chrysler and General Motors in the late 70’s and early 80’s  and lost much of its population (from 1.5 million in 1970 to 680,000 in 2013), techno music reclaimed disused urban spaces and became the soundtrack to the de-industrial revolution. In between Motown and techno, there was Death.

Death is not a reference to the shrinking city Detroit but the name of a rock band. Its members were the Hackney brothers who hailed from a middle-class African American family in Detroit and were inspired to play music after watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. Racial stereotypes, however, also extended to music. Black musicians were expected to play funk, R&B, blues or jazz; white groups had more options – white soul singers and funk groups had to prove their “credibility” but nevertheless could go on to huge success. A musician like Jimi Hendrix, who transcended these arbitrary boundaries, was somewhat of an anomaly. Hard rock was what Death played, with heavy, yet catchy guitar riffs, interesting variances of chorus-verse structures and an energy and economy that can be found in punk which emerged a few years later. In 1973, however, the music world at large wasn’t yet ready for these lean, mean sounds, and certainly not played by African Americans called Death. The name was the final nail in the commercial coffin – powerful, adventurous label heads like Arista’s Clive Davis liked the band, but he implored them to change the name. (The Grateful Dead were likely never asked to do anything of the kind, and in the late 80’s a death metal band from Tampa became a second band called Death.) Band founder David Hackney felt a name change would compromise his integrity and vision. And so Death became a great lost group of the proto-punk era who explored a “black rock” sound that would be capitalized on later by acts such as Bad Brains and Living Colour. (Considering that an African American, Chuck Berry, was a pioneer of rock ‘n’ roll makes the hard time black rock musicians had even harder to fathom.) David and his brothers disbanded Death in 1977 and switched to gospel and later reggae; in 2000, David died of lung cancer; his brothers carried on as Lambsbread.

As if this part of the story weren’t interesting (though tragic) enough, the proceedings get a Sugarman-like spin. In the 2000’s, a Nashville music nerd picks up Death’s sole single “Politicians In My Eyes” in a record store bargain bin. He’s blown away. Soon mp3 files of the A and B sides pop up online. A certain Bobby Hackney, Jr. hears the music at a party. He’s blown away. Even more so by the fact that the songs were made by none other than his father, Bobby Sr…. Jeff Howlett’s and Mark Corvino’s documentary A BAND CALLED DEATH tells the full story of Death’s demise and resurrection. It’s a musical detective story, a moving tale of family love and an introduction to some great music.