Directors Lounge Screening
Gabriele Stellbaum – The Folly of Others
Thursday, 27. February 2025, 9 p.m.
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte
Berlin artist Gabriele Stellbaum presents a program of experimental narratives at Z-Bar, starring with the premiere of her newest film “The Up-ending”. With her films, Gabriele Stellbaum creates short stories in which she often plays the main character. The figures in her films are unlike any common short films, in which the characters are usually set for identification and psychological development. Rather more, she defies the conventions of narrative film in many other ways.
Her narrative style evokes Samuel Beckett’s films and theater plays, though her characters face the intricacies of everyday life instead of Becket’s existential crises. Stellbaum’s protagonists are not likeable, but the viewer is led to follow their path with empathy. Some of Stellbaum’s figures are reminiscent to the protagonists of Cindy Sherman’s “Film Stills” as if they would come alive, walking. Stellbaum’s protagonists, mostly one or two main characters, often act in one very special Berlin location, such as a claustrophobic parking house, an empty modernist hospital, an empty swimming pool, or a data processing center. The specific location becomes the second (or third) character in the chamber play, while the main protagonist is caught in a kind of calm but stubborn, continuous resistance to their circumstances. The viewer thus witnesses the unfolding calamities, which often bear a certain political connection to contemporary circumstances.
We are happy that Gabriele Stellbaum will be available for Q&A after screening. Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr.
Links:
www.stellbaum.net
www.zbarberlin.com
www.directorslounge.net
www.richfilm.de/currentUpload