The Brazilian filmmaker Davi Pretto (*1988) is currently the guest of the DAAD's Artists-in-Berlin program. In his two feature-length films, both of which showed at the Forrum, documentary observation, mise-en-scene and fictional elements are connected and in both he works with amateur actors and different guises of genre. CASTANHA (2014) depicts the actor and transvestite João Carlos Castanha, whose best years are behind him. He lives with his mother on a middle-class estate. In the evenings, he performs in gay bars. Details from his everyday life are juxtaposed with elements of fantasy and the visualization of memories. RIFLE (2016), which is set in the deserted expanses of southern Brazil, borrows from the road movie, western and thriller genres. A taciturn former soldier is employed to protect the estate of a smallholder, resorting to drastic measures when a big agricultural corporation makes a bid to buy the land.

The two feature films plus two short films can be seen at Kino Arsenal on June 27 and 28.

AUS EINEM JAHR DER NICHTEREIGNISSE (FROM A YEAR OF NON-EVENTS) by Ann Carolin Renninger and René Frölke is being released theatrically by Wolf Berlin as of June 14. A premiere with the filmmakers present will take place on June 13.

As the seasons change, the film paints a portrait of the everyday life Willi who is almost 90 years old and lives alone on a farm in northern Germany. It’s also a visual essay on the cycle of life, as the camera observes nature, captures fruit and flowers in bloom in all their glory. Textures equally come to the fore: the cat’s fur, the pattern on the coffee service, the structure of a marzipan cake; at times the camera photographs apples or plastic garden chairs as if they were still lifes. The images transcend mere depiction – they contain a feeling of evanescence, which is enhanced by the fragility of the Super-8 and 16-mm material used to film them. Even the black screens that appear when the reels are changed reveal the passage of time. (Birgit Kohler)