SCREENING CHERNOBYL 25 

Presented by Klaus W. Eisenlohr. The film program comprises films representing visions of the abandoned city of Pripyat by artists and documentary filmmakers, and imaginations of futures under the influence of “peaceful nuclear energy”.
Gair Dunlop confronts historical material about the glorious future that Dounreay Atomic Research Establishment would provide with his own camera footage, shot after the shut-down of the research power plant (Atom Town: Life After Technology). Now a ruin that still radiates, Dounreay does not attract nuclear tourists, unlike Chernobyl, which has become a popular destinations for photographers and other contemporary “explorers”. Julio Soto presents his imagination of cities after a climate or nuclear catastrophe in virtual images (Invisible Cities) just before he went to Pripyat himself in order to make a documentary about past and present inhabitants of the forbidden zone (Radiophobia). Vanessa Renwick in glorious pictures celebrates the good-bye to Trojan, a power-plant in the US that may be the equivalent to Brokdorf in Germany concerning the long-lasting local protests, but which was never going on-grid (Portrait #2: Trojan). And Thomas Bartels reflects in poetic pictures of 16mm film the mood of the year 1986, now almost a documentary of the mood in Germany under the influence of the clouds of Chernobyl (Zwischenlandung).

Chernobyl may have become the symbol for the crumbled future visions of modern prosperity made possible by peaceful nuclear energy, and for the apocalyptic imaginations of a modern catastrophe. However, it has also triggered an array of aspirations for adventures. Maybe less so the actual melted and broken reactor, shielded under a crumbling “sarcophagus” but the ghost town Pripyat, once a young modernist city, has become a collective iconographic symbol for the uncanny modernity that seems to attract people in many ways.

pripyat — the uncanny of modernity

Tuesday, 20 Sept 2011
19:30
Kommunales Kino Freiburg
Alter Wiehre Bahnhof
Urachstr. 40
79102 Freiburg im Breisgau

press links:

Program infos:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesPripyat.html
http://www.koki-freiburg.de/detail.php?fnr=3843

http://www.koki-freiburg.de/
http://www.directorslounge.net

Jakob Kirchheim

schnitte—bilder—worte

film and video works
Thursday, 28 July 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Prints–Images-Words

Jakob Kirchheim combines different art genres in very personal ways, genres that usually are not connected with each other. He creates films and paintings using linoleum prints. The seriality of printing initially made the artist experimenting with film. He has used a variety of animation methods without leading him to classic animation forms. The ways Jakob Kirchheim also includes words and maps then results in political meaningful references, and they partly remind of the styles of agitprop from the 1920’s, but also from the 60’s and 70’s. However, the artists likes to see them as media references rather than just bold political statements. These references seem to say, «Agitprop? Isn’t that pure poetry, anyways?» Already in 1987, Jakob Kirchheim conceived his first «Linolfilm», a stop motion film based on linoleum prints as a combination of words and images. Since then he further developed his film techniques using photographs, collage techniques and live footage, and he thus has produced over 20 experimental animation, poetry and documentary films.

Artist Link:
http://www.jakob-kirchheim.de/

Links:

More infos at http://richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesKirchheim.html

Z-Bar
http://www.z-bar.de

Directors Lounge Screening

Michael Brynntrup

meSelf, mySelf and iSelf
film + video works

Thursday, 30 June 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Michael Brynntrup is an artist and filmmaker who has been probing the limits of independent, personal and experimental film since the 80’s. Very early in his art career, he started off with Super-8 films, but soon experimented with multiple projections and collaborations with other artists. With „Jesus, der Film“ his collaboration took the form of a „cadavre exquis“, the joint product of a number of directors who only saw part of the work of their collegues, but who all were asked to have Brynntrup play the main character, Jesus. The resulting feature-long film became a legend, while little later, Brynntrup also became a well known director in the gay-and-lesbian cinema movement. His goal, however, was to never become monopolized by a certain scene, and thus, since his start, he has strived for a diversity of themes and genres in his work. Still, we can find the repeated and ongoing questions of the identity of the self, the questions, how the roles we play in society are being defined by gender and sexual orientation, and how the mirror of the other, and the mirror of death influences our lives. Last but not least, the artist adresses the question how much of an impact the mirror of media does have. (Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Links:

Michael Brynntrup
http://www.brynntrup.de/

Z-Bar
http://www.z-bar.de

More infos (Klaus W. Eisenlohr):
http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/index.html

Directors Lounge Screening

FLEXFEST 2011 –

SELECTED WORKS FROM THE FLORIDA EXPERIMENTAL FILM/VIDEO FESTIVAL 2011

presented by
Roger Beebe, artistic director of Flexfest

Thursday, 26 May 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

FLEX: the Florida Experimental Film and Video Festival presents a program of highlights from their 2011 biennial competitive festival. FLEX is interested in an expansive notion of experimental media. “Work may draw on documentary, animation, avant-garde, underground, or other traditions—or no traditions at all.“ As such the programming comprises a variety of mediums from 16mm direct animation to found video and from laconic place studies to experimental love poems.

Since its start in 2004, Flexfest has become one of the most important festivals for experimental media in USA, challenging us to rethink what ‘experimental’ means. Roger Beebe, who is the artistic director of Flexfest, and who is currently teaching a 5 week workshop at LaborBerlin, will present the program. He was already a guest at Directors Lounge in 2009 (Link). Roger Beebe will be available for Q&A.

The Florida Experimental Film/Video Festival presents both year-round programming and an annual festival (FLEXfest) in Gainesville, Florida. Showcasing a broad range of experimental media, FLEXfest alternates a biennial competitive festival with a biennial curated event. Past FLEX guests have included Craig Baldwin, Jim Trainor, Helga Fanderl, Deborah Stratman, Ben Russell, Robert Todd, Leighton Pierce, Naomi Uman, Bill Brown, Scott Stark, Jacqueline Goss, Johan Grimonprez, Vanessa Renwick, and many others.

Program:
Utopia, Part 3:The World’s Biggest Shopping Mall, Sam Green (13:09/HD/2009/USA)

Iron-Wood, Richard Tuohy (7:00/16mm/2009/Australia)

The Voyagers, Penny Lane (16:30/DV/Jun. 2010/USA)

Horizon Line, Katherin McInnis (1:00/HDV/USA)

Somewhere Only We Know, Jesse McLean (5:15/Video/2009/USA)

Tusslemuscle, Steve Cossman (5:00/16mm/Nov. 2009/USA)

Portrait #2: Trojan, Vanessa Renwick (5:00/35MM TO VIDEO/2006)

White House, Georg Koszulinski (8:00/DV/2009/USA)

Day/Night (Devil’s Milhopper), Andres E. Arocha (4:56/16mm/Apr. 2009/USA)

28.IV.81(Bedouin Sparks), Christopher Harris (2:49/16mm/Jan. 2009/USA)

Links:
http://flexfest.org

http://www.facebook.com/flexfest

http://www.directorslounge.net

http://www.z-bar.de

More program infos:
http://richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesFlexfest.html

alina skrzeszewska –
songs from the nickel

Thursday, 28 April 2011
21:00

Z-Bar
Bergstr. 2
D-10115 Berlin-Mitte
U-Rosenthaler Platz

Alina Skrzeszewska created a colorful, sad and thoughtful film about the shadow sides of downtown Los Angeles, not without showing strains of hope. And there is music, songs by the protagonists starring in the film.

The Nickel, the Eastern part of downtown used to be an isolated island in the urban grid of L.A.: historic but sordid former grand hotels; the number of homeless people surpasses the number of inhabitants multiple times; a network of christian missions and charity organisations are entangled in what is called the Skid Row; from 10 pm through 6:30 am you are allowed to sleep in the street (but then you have to move); there is a lack of over 12,000 beds for homeless shelter; on the other hand, a massive police presence and the reign of crack makes life in the street like a trip to hell. In this strange otherworldly urban zone, the old hotels seem to be islands in the stormy waters, and they are the cheapest places to live in town. Here, the artist Skrzeszewska rented a room for over one and half a year while shooting for her film. Those who live here, and whom we get to know in the film, have at least some kind of steady income, a job in the hotel, a veteran pension, or social welfare for the disabled. They were able to leave the state of homelessness or the circle of jail and drugs.

Thus, for Alina the hotels are a place of reflection, a retreat from the “war in the street” as Alina calls it. “In the street there is never time for thoughtfulness.” Therefore, she uses these odd spaces of retreat that the hotels are as spaces of reflection — and possibly projection — to discuss life and the society that creates those biographies missing any hope. The artist’s conditions for a talk in front of the camera was openness to have an earnest conversation. We see very little “false” acting in front of the camera, maybe because the artist does all the recording on her own, and it is this sincerity of a “one to one” talk and Alina’s honest interest in the story of her counterpart that makes her bridge the gap: A young European woman who studies at CalArts and the finally settled tramps. Some of them tell stories of their life, they never told before. We get to know there are many reasons to strand at the hotels of the Nickel. Some were dropped out by the society that fits only for the fittest, and they lost everything they had in the past. Others decided not to “play their game.” All of them still seem to be untouched by the epidemic that now spreads for 2 decades: crack.

In such a way, Alina Skrzeszewska also shows to us the poetry and wisdom of the underprivileged, all of which recorded by a camera that was inspired by Edward Hopper and the reading of Charles Bukowski, as Alina admitted to herself after she had finished the film. The positive notions of the film however derive from the examples of anarchistic renderings of their interests, like the illegal music studio in the hotel’s basement. It’s that very American idea of the self-made man that is still valid, and the roots of American pop culture based in the will of the poorest men to survive in dignity that are still showing, here.

A. Skrzeszewska, who was born in Wroclaw in Poland, and who lives and works somewhere in between Berlin, Los Angeles and Vienna, will be present at the screening at Z-Bar and will be available for Q&A.

In addition, Alina will present the short film “Notes from the Fields”, 10 mins, showing a day’s cycle on the crossing of 5th St. and Los Angeles St. in The Nickels.

Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

More infos, German text and film stills:
http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesSkrzeszewska.html

Artist Link:
http://www.songsfromthenickel.com/
Press Links:
http://www.directorslounge.net
http://www.z-bar.de

Directors Lounge special screening:

CHRISTINA MCPHEE
The Delicate Landscape of Crisis
at REMISE
FREIES MUSEUM BERLIN
April 15, 2011

A premier survey of California-based McPhee’s experimental films from 2002-2011 will screen at 21:00 , 15 April , 2011 at  Freies Museum, Potsdamer Strasse 91 Berlin http://www.freies-museum.com/
Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr of Director’s Lounge, Berlin.

“Delicate structures arise in the transport of trauma”:  Christina McPhee traces landscapes of crisis, performing video montage like drawings in a data-field. From earthquake landscapes in the California desert, to Ground Zero in New York, to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, McPhee tracks the intimate topographies of environmental crisis in America.  McPhee (b. 1954 Los Angeles) is a visual and media artist whose films have shown most recently at Art Cologne OpenSpace with Vernissage.tv; Director’s Lounge, Berlin; Cinéphèmère at the Tuileries for FIAC, Paris; San Francisco Cinematheque, and ISEA, Belfast. Christina McPhee is represented by Silverman Gallery, San Francisco

“ McPhee…imbues documentary realism with subjective evocation to such an extent that the project effectively displaces the importance of the documentary imag°òs indexicality… Still photographs, composited images and video clips of the landscape, environment and vernacular shrines allow the viewer to piece together the relationship between geological instability and psychological trauma…. ”
Sharon LIn Tay, film critic, London (Studies in Documentary Film 2008)

http://www.directorslounge.net
http://www.freies-museum.com/
http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/index.html

with support from Walden http://www.galerie-walden.de/
and Galerie Suomesta http://www.suomestagalleria.net/

Directors Lounge Screening at Z-Bar

Thursday, 24 March 2011

Seppo Renvall
Times, Songs and Material
16mm films and video

21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

“Never very good technical quality“, "no sharp image“, "no tripod“, "everything kind of shaky“, "mainly things that are not interesting“, "no story“, "no one idea“ – when reading these quotes from Seppo Renvall on his own films, one could think he is practising some kind of anti-aesthetic. However, Seppo Renvall does not want to cause offence or a scandal. Rather, his "negativity“ is set against the grand gestures that predominate media, and the superlatives "most“, "best“ and "highest“ required by the art scene. Theodor Adorno uses the term "negativity“ in conjunction with resistance and connected with a countenance that does not allow reconciliation with the power, or the "wrong“ social situation. Since then, times have changed and this society may not any more require a "life in alert“ (Walter Benjamin) but now urges a life in agitation. Seppo’s negativity seems to be more gentle, and seems to function more as a shield or as subversion against that constant state of arousal the media and the art world expect from the arts and the artists.

"If something interesting is happening, I possibly decide to shoot in the opposite direction“, and often he finds something more subtle, more telling than the spectacle ahead. His sympathy goes to the little things in life, or maybe I should say: empathy. His films thus carry his empathy to the small situations in daily life. As a consequence, part of his work is made of home movies showing scenes with friends, family life, children and travel, shot and shown on 16mm.

The themes of his other films are quite divers but still connected with daily life, even if they seem to embrace the spectacle, like "Nonstoppampam“. In this (in original) 3-channel work, an array of gunshots is fired in rapid succession. We possibly need to know the fact that these people shoot with a real gun for the first time in their life in order to see, what S. Renvall was mainly interested in: the awes, the hesitation, the threat and the surprise on the recoil forces reflected on their faces “Exotique” and “Yötähteni” talk about spaces of in-between, between light and shadow, night and day, unconscious and waking. Combined with the music of Aslak Christianson and others, many of these films, mostly edited on video, become songs, rhapsodies of life and a strong subversion of the mirror, which the TV screen seems to be for us.

Seppo Renvall will be present for Q&A.

Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr
With support from Suomesta Galerie, Berlin

More infos at:

http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesSeppo.html

http://www.z-bar.de/
http://open.fixc.fi/public.php?nid_send=271&uid_send=15
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Suomesta-galerie/117934471569793

Programme:

16mm

Home Movies 4 2:00

Home Movies 1-3 7:00

Private Area 3:49

Video

The Price Of Our Liberty 08:09

Warm Front 5:24

Iris And Nalle 2:53

Planet Earth Encyclopedia 6:13

Dancing Shortly 1:13

Exotique 09:57

Dancing Shortly II 2:45

Drum Zymphony 21:15

Nonstop PamPam 4:20

Yötähteni 2:30

Wed 16th 7pm

Interventions – The Spaces of Politics

Terrorsounds by Jacob Kirchheim

Terrorsounds by Jacob Kirchheim and Teresa Delgado

Andrew Norman Wilson US Workers Leaving the Googleplex 11min 59s 2010

Jacob Kirchheim, Teresa Delgado DE Terrorsounds 6min 2010

Masha Godovannaya RU 40 10min 40s 2010

Pilar Ortiz X CL Circunvalación 33min 2010

Shalalae Jamil PK Watching Wheels 5min 30s 2010-2011

Tom Skipp ES Antioch – Florent on the Bridge 9min 26s 2010

curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

Antioch by Tom Skipp

Antioch – Florent on the Bridge (Caravan Project) by Tom Skipp

More infos on Urban Research at www.richfilm.de/DL2011

A preview, links and more stills at richfilm.tumblr.com

Tues 15th  8pm

Imaginary Spaces – Virtual Vision

The Oyster Effect by Valentina Ferrantes

Anders Weberg SE Elsewhereness: Utrecht 4min 7s 2010

Anders Weberg SE Elsewhereness: Cape Town 2min 7s 2009

André Chi Sing Yuen DE The Work 3min 35s 2010

Andrew de Freitas NZ/CN L’Espace Quotidien 10min 46s 2010

Henry Gwiazda US something/the/you 4min 58s 2009

Julie Meyer FR Eclipse 1min 20s 2009

Marina Chernikova NL Metro V 2min 30s 2009

Morehshin Allahyari IR Over There Is Over Here 5min 43s 2010

Sarah Breen Lovett AU Expanded Architecture 04: Window Wound 1min 20sec 2010

Susanne Wiegner DE Just Midnight 3min 37s 2010

Tina Willgren SE The Polymoids 2min 51s 2010

Valentina Ferrandes IT The Oyster Effect 11min 52s 2010

Vera Frenkel CN Once Near Water: Notes from the Scaffolding Archive 15min 26s 2008

Yoko Hata JP Out of the Sky – Back into the Sky 9min 4s 2010

curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

Notes from the Scaffolding Archives by Vera Frenkel

Once Near Water: Notes from the Scaffolding Archive by Vera Frenkel

More infos on Urban Research at www.richfilm.de/DL2011

A preview, links and more stills at richfilm.tumblr.com

Directors Lounge Screening at Z-Bar
Saturday, 08 Jan 2011
21:00
Relations and Abstractions
Films by
Max Hattler

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Max Hattler surprises his audience with the gripping force of his abstracted images, combined with sounds he often composes for his own films. The German media artist and animator lives in London and has made a real leap into the media art and festival scene since he graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2005. A programme of his films was already presented at Directors Lounge 2010, and we are happy to present his new programme this month, prior to our festival in February.

In Germany, animation is not being considered as a proper art field, and similar to graphic arts it is often seen as “angewandte Kunst” i.e. craftsmanship or applied arts, mostly feeding the film industry. The field of animation can be quite broad, from animations from pencil drawings, paper-cut-outs, stop-motion, 3D animation, Flash animation and live generated computer graphics. Max Hattler seems to embrace them all, and his work could be seen as happy eclecticism, as post-modern art practice. In Aanaatt (2008) he is using stop-motion animation, Drift (2007) is a combination of close-up photography of skin combined with compositing and Flash animation, Heaven and Hell (2010) are computer generated graphic animation loops, Everything Turns (2004) has been drawn directly into the computer, and Ladyscraper: Cheese Burgers (2011) looks like it was made with live VJ tools.

Looking closer into Max’s work, however, we realize that his art is in no way about eclecticism or appropriation. The artist does make his mark with genuine image composition, and even if his use of different media tools is astonishingly varied, there is something common in most of his films, a kind of surplus, or plenitude that can be almost overwhelming. Animation, this tedious and time-consuming technique (also true in the digital age) usually leads to reduction (unless it is made by big teams and studios such as Pixar) often resulting in a kind of artistic beauty of scarcity. Not with Max Hattler, though! Even if animation techniques lead him to quite abstracted forms, they are not abstract. And the reduced, abstracted forms become symbols again, which often multiply, break apart in smaller image units, still animated, and again accumulate, congregate to larger units, to super-structures. Amazingly, this often happens with a chuckle, a political twist or black humour.

We are very much looking forward to this film night with Max Hattler, who will be available for Q&A after the show.

(curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Artist Link:
http://www.maxhattler.com/
http://www.facebook.com/maxhattler.artistpage

More infos:
http://richfilm.de

Z-Bar
http://www.z-bar.de