Rencontres
September 15 – September 17, 2017 | Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg
Rencontre I - The luxury you gain, when you’ve got nothing to lose
November 10 – November 11, 2017 | Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg
Rencontre II - Until we begin to see something
Slideshow >>
“Before watching their films, it is useful to recall that Straub is a trained grammairien. This is a discipline which presupposes a special, typically French love of language; the audacious idea of fathoming the nature of language in a methodically extra-linguistic manner. All their films may be grasped this way: as stories on a threshold, as undertakings of the in-between”, the film critic Frieda Grafe wrote on the occasion of a Huillet/Straub retrospective at the Munich Film Museum in 1997.
Speaking with the grammar of images and sounds, Frieda Grafe also gives a name to a particularity which underlies the notion of an encounter, a rencontre. What happens here is always inbetween; between language and the image, the gesture, the spoken word, the gaze, and everything that is not said. What occurs with a film through the encounter; what it does and how it can be realised through theory and action – this technique, this adventure is closely linked to the films of Huillet and Straub, and has also always stood in contradiction to the relatively sporadic visibility of these films themselves.
To talk about the films collaboratively, to argue and discuss them, and to travel with them, always formed an important part of the practice of Huillet and Straub. It had nothing to do with the limited discourse of the interpreters. On the contrary. “We made the Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach for the farmers from the primeval Bavarian forest; (…) Our dream would have been to make films anonymously; just as they are, but not to write: ‘Straub, Huillet: Caution – rigorous, taxing! Watch out! You’ll fall asleep! Boring, long takes!’ (…) And they might have said: ‘History Lessons (1972): There are texts by Bertolt Brecht. You don’t know what Bertolt Brecht is? Alright, here’s a sample.’”
With the international presence of the films by Huillet/Straub and their release in digital media, references to them have also multiplied. During the Rencontres days at the beginning and end of the exhibition period, diverse ways of speaking, forms of debate, and questions will be taken up. Participants include: their long-standing cameraman Renato Berta; former assistant, actor, and filmmaker Manfred Blank; friend and filmmaker Peter Nestler; and artists of a new generation like Ala Younis, Luisa Greenfield, Oraib Toukan, Louis Henderson, Elke Marhöfer, Mikhail Lylov and many others. At the conclusion on 11th November, the New Composers Collective (a spin-off project by Mouse on Mars), together with Astrid Ofner, will perform their remix of Antigone.
Sicilia!, D: Huillet/Straub, 1998, 66´, OmU
Introduction: Peter Kammerer DE
Der Tod des Empedokles oder Wenn dann der Erde Grün von neuem Euch erglänzt [The Death of Empedocles or When the Green of the Earth Will Glisten for You Anew], D: Huillet/Straub, 1986, 132´, „Rome Version“, OV
Guest: Renato Berta EN
Zur Kunst des Dialogs bei Pavese und Vittorini
Lecture: Manfred Bauschulte DE
Talk about Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet and Heiner Müller
with Peter Kammerer and Patrick Primavesi, DE
Talk by Rinaldo Censi and a conversation with Armin Linke, Renato Berta EN
Toute révolution est un coup de dés, D: Huillet/Straub, 1977, 10´, OmE
Zu früh / zu spät, D: Huillet/Straub, 1980/81, 100´, english version
Introduction: Manfred Blank, Lecture: "That has more to do with coincidence", DE
About Danièle Huillet’s multifaceted contribution to filmmaking.
Talk by Luisa Greenfield and Giulio Bursi EN
In conversation: Ala Younis, Louis Henderson, Oraib Toukan, EN
On Panning to the Sky
Talk by Nida Ghouse, EN
Talk by Paolo Caffoni, EN
Fortini/Cani, D: Huillet/Straub, 1976, 83´, OmE
Dalla nube alla resistenza, D: Huillet/Straub, 1978, 105´, OmE
Die Nordkalotte, D: Peter Nestler, 1990, 90´, GV
Warum ist Krieg?, D: Peter Nestler, 1969/70, 18´, GV
Guest: Peter Nestler, DE
Expected to attend: Jean-Marie Straub
Public seminar with Florian Schneider and interventions by Mikhail Lylov, Elke Marhöfer, Patrick Primavesi, Ute Holl and others, EN
The seminar addresses the question what constitutes a "pédagogie straubienne" as Serge Daney once coined it. Furthermore, what could be its significance in a post digital age? A categorical irreconcilability with what is given or predominant characterizes not only the relationship between moving image and original artwork from other disciplines, such as literature, painting, music. In the true sense of the term "virtual" it also suspends the conventions of traditionally accepted frameworks as well as their actual conditions.
Soils - Habit - Plants, D: Mikhail Lylov/Elke Marhöfer, 2017, approx. 10´, special 16mm screening
The short film Soils — Habit — Plants poses the question, if it’s possible to understand nature not only as background for a proceeding human history and human consciousness. Can soils and plants, with their specific habits and image politics, teach us for example a non-representative policy?
Zwei Versuche einer Einleitung zu Huillets/Straubs Antigone
Musical interpretation of the Antigone script by Huillet/Straub. New Composers Collective and Astrid Ofner. World premiere
Voice / choreography: Astrid Ofner
Music / choreography: Andi Toma, Jan St. Werner, Michael Rauter, Matti Gajek
New Composers Collective is a project by Mouse on Mars, Michael Rauter and Matti Gajek
Followed by:
Die Antigone des Sophokles nach der Hölderlinschen Übertragung für die Bühne bearbeitet von Brecht 1948 (Suhrkamp Verlag), D: Huillet/Straub, 1991, 100´, OV