Eric Rohmer, the eldest among his Nouvelle Vague fellow travelers Godard, Rivette, Chabrol, and Truffaut, had already written a novel and worked as a teacher and critic before he started making films. Between 1950 and 2007, he shot more than 50 films. Most can easily be identified as Rohmer movies, his style is unmistakable. All of his films are experimental set-ups, so to speak, dealing with love on the stage of everyday life, the role of chance and morality, filigree relationships, the virtuoso play with the arithmetics of personal relations – most of which is addressed via language. The dialogs are a decisive element of the scenery, the spoken word plays a vital role: Thoughts on emotions, plans of life, disappointments, and longings are always fully formulated. Rohmer's films are strictly composed, yet they are very light, intellectual and sensuous, artistically stylized and imbued with reality. And always staged with a certain distance, observing, curious to find things out about the characters and the way they act.
Carl Theodor Dreyer Retrospective
In March we will continue our retrospective of films by the great Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889–1968), screening all works he directed until the end of the month. Between 1919 and 1964, Dreyer shot a total of 14 full-length films that differ greatly. Social realism and melodrama, comedy and passion story, fairy tale and horror movie alternate. Works characterized by concise close-ups stand alongside films without a single close-up, works edited in a faced-paced way alongside ones with ten-minute-long shots, movies dominated by language next to sound films with a minimum amount of dialog. Dreyer was convinced that a director should not adhere to a personal style; it was his aim to "find a style valid only for a very specific film", depending on the subject. A decisive basis for this was formed by the script, always written by him based on a literary model, the selection of actors as well as special accuracy and attention to detail regarding the props. What all films have in common is the search for a modern cinematographic form of expression and a reduction to what is essential.
Classics Not Only For Children
"Das Licht" (The Light) is the German title of YEELEN (Brightness, Souleymane Cissé, Mali 1987, Feb. 7 & 28), one of the most important films of African cinema, the predominating color of which is the sun's glister. Light is consequently the focus of the film on various levels. Set in Mali's pre-colonial, Bambara culture, the film narrates an initiation drama and a father-son conflict. Young Nianankoro is on the threshold of adulthood and to acquire the knowledge of the Bambara so as to preserve it and pass it on. His father, however, is a powerful magician who wants to prevent his son from becoming his equal and even intends to kill him. His mother therefore flees with him and makes it possible for him to learn the skills enabling him to confront his father.
An Evening for Taylor Mead
85 year-old Taylor Mead is the first superstar of the American underground. Since 1960 he has appeared in over 100 films, including over 15 by Andy Warhol. Mead is also a poet, filmmaker and stage actor of great acclaim. To pay homage to this exceptional talent, Mead's friend John Heys, with Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel, has prepared a fittingly exceptional evening including a documentary about Mead; film surprises; and readings from Mead's poetry and essays.
Kino Polska
Two films by Krzysztof Kieslowski were screened in 1980 and 1981 at the Forum of the Berlinale:
FilmDokument: DAS GROSSE EIS
In 1936, the film company Atelier Svend Noldan produced the full-length cultural film DAS GROSSE EIS – ALFRED WEGENERS LETZTE FAHRT. It is based on recordings of the Greenland expedition headed by Alfred Wegener in 1930 and overshadowed by the death of the arctic explorer. The film production not only documents the then-newest insights into the exploration of Greenland, but is also dedicated to the heroization of German science: Breathtaking shots of the polar ice landscapes alternate with didactic explanations. Then-state-of the-art animation technology visualizes the research work, while Germanic heroic sayings serve as a frame. This is a film document worth seeing, for it reveals the interplay of film industry, politics, science, and popular culture during the National Socialist period. (Dorit Müller)
An event of CineGraph Babelsberg in cooperation with the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv and the Deutsche Kinemathek. Introduction: Dorit Müller (Feb. 22)
Nippon Modern: Shimazu Yasujiro
Shimazu Yasujiro (1897–1945, not to be mistaken for Shimizu Hiroshi) belongs to the directors who in the 1920s and 30s worked for the Shochiku company (but also for TOHO) and developed a realistic style often characterized by socially critical commitment, which became known as !Japanese classicism" of the pre-war period. The directors of the Nikkatsu company (to whom Mizoguchi belonged) pursued a different style that adhered more to theater. In the case of Shochiku, the influence of U.S. cinema was already dominant, along with the American editing technique introduced by cameraman Kotani, who had previously worked in Hollywood. Shimazu, who remained in Tokyo after the earthquake in 1923 and worked in Shochiku's Kamata Studio, initially shot melodramas, but then turned to modern dramas set in everyday life, discovering new actors and actresses and turning them into stars them stars. Many Japanese directors of the next generations were inspired by the work of Shimazu, including Gosho Heinosuke and Kinoshita Keisuke, who worked as assistant directors for Shimazu. The Tokyo FilmEx Festival stated in its catalog: "Shimazu Yasujiro’s influence on Japanese cinema cannot be overestimated." In November 2009, Tokyo FilmEx contributed to the rediscovery of Shimazu with its retrospective “Nippon Modern: 1930s”.
Magical History Tour – Light in Cinema
Light is nothing less than the foundation of cinema. Lighting and the distribution of light in filmmaking possesses far more than just a technical aspect. Light is a basic theme in cinema in regard to dramaturgy, narration and staging. Bright lights and minimal lighting, the casting of shadows, the interplay between lightness and darkness tell stories without words.
Carl Theodor Dreyer Retrospective
Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889–1968) wrote film history with a comparatively small body of work, to which following generations of directors refer to until today. The Danish director of Swedish descent, whose birth name was "Karl Nilsson", remained an outsider in the film business throughout his life, despite the worldwide recognition he received since his great artistic success, LA PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC (1928), at the latest. His films are characterized by simplicity and stylistic purity lacking any kind of embellishment. Reduced to what is essential, his artistic means aim at "recording not only exterior life but interior life as well" (Carl Th. Dreyer), at visualizing man's innermost and unutterable traits. Dreyer's dispensing with showiness and his uncompromising manner when realizing his intentions led to many film projects never going beyond the project stage. Dreyer realized a total of 14 films, with the intervals between them increasing. His five sound films were produced in a period of 34 years.
Forum Expanded
Forum Expanded enters the stage in its fifth year with a new focus on the relation of performance and film. With more than 40 film, installation and performance projects from 20 countries, the program offers new perspectives not only in artistic but also geopolitical terms.
Funded by:
Arsenal on Location is funded by the Capital Cultural Fund
The international programs of Arsenal on Location are a cooperation with the Goethe-Institut
