DL: short cuts to Japan, Thursday 24th Nov. Z-Bar, Berlin

Directors Lounge presents experimental films all around Japan

We participated in this year´s 日本デ , the 10th Japan-Day in Duesseldorf, celebrating the 150 anniversary of Japanese-German diplomatic relations. 

DL: Short Cuts to Japan,  first screened during the Japan-Day at the Black Box cinema is dedicated to Japan in experimental cinema and video art. Films included cover a wide range of “Japans”, from fictional to historical to personal…

films by Ciro Altabás, Marina Chernikova, André Werner, Yukihiro Taguchi, Jean-Gabriel Périot, Matthew Dotson & Bart Woodstrop, Anders Weberg & Robert Willim, GUP-py, Kazuhiko Kobayashi, Akinori Okada & Masataka Ohta

curated by Julia Murakami

Thursday, 24 Nov. 2011 
21:00 / 9 p.m.
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2 
10115 Berlin-Mitte

pictured (above): Made In Japan by Ciro Altabás ES                                          pictured: Platform N1/Tokyo by Marina Chernikova NL

Directors Lounge Screening

Steven Ball
Travelling Practice
video works
Thursday, 27 Oct. 2011
21:00
Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

Travelling Practice

Digital video works by Steven Ball 2003 – 2010. These works travel near and far, across physical and virtual space using material collected en route. Travel determines form, subject and object are fluid entities, digital experimentation becomes landscape study, hyperlocal excursion, and experimental documentary, as they explore and exhaust species of spaces and media.

Steven Ball has worked in film, video, sound and installation since the early 1980s. In the late 1980s he accidentally migrated to Melbourne, Australia. There he continued his practice making a number of film, video and sound and installation works, as well as being engaged in various curatorial, administrative, teaching and writing activities. Since returning to the UK he has worked predominantly with digital video, producing a series of works, which among other things, are particularly concerned with digital material processes and spatial representation.

Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr

Artist Links:

home: http://www.steven-ball.net

blog: http://directobjective.blogspot.com

videoblog: http://directlanguage2010.blogspot.com

Public Water: http://www.publicwater.net

More infos:

http://www.directorslounge.net

http://www.richfilm.de/currentUpload/

http://www.z-bar.de/Inhaltsseiten/kulturprogramm.html

Directors Lounge Screenings:  

Petra Lottje + Curtis Burz 
AUF DER SPUR

video works
Donnerstag, 29. Sept 2011
21:00

Z-Bar

Bergstraße 2

10115 Berlin-Mitte

Directors Lounge präsentiert ein Programm mit Petra Lottje und Curtis Burz. Beide Künstler, aus ganz unterschiedlichem Hintergrund, Bildende Kunst bei Petra Lottje und die dokumentarische Tradition europäischen Kinos bei Curtis Burz, befassen sich mit zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen. Ob diese nun eigentlich „auf der Spur“ sind (on track) oder „abseits der Spur“ (off track) bleibt auch über die ambivalente Benutzung der Medien oder des Recordings bei beiden Künstlern offen, oder hängt davon ab, welchen Blickpunkt der Beobachter (Zuschauer) selbst einnehmen will.

‚Sprache bildet in zahlreichen Videos Petra Lottjes den Ansatzpunkt der Auseinandersetzung. Sie kombiniert Tonsequenzen aus unterschiedlichen Spielfilmen, verleiht ihnen körperlichen Ausdruck und setzt sie in neue Zusammenhänge. … Heute ist jeder Protagonist seines eigenen Films, doch wie eigen ist dieser Film wirklich? Und wie sehr sind wir selbst Medien kollektiver Stereotypen?’ (Susanne Husse, 2010)

In drei Episoden aus dem dokumentarischen Essay „Ich habe Dir nie erzählt, womit ich mein Geld verdiene“ (2011) erzählt Curtis Burz von Menschen, die sich scheinbar in der Mitte der Gesellschaft bewegen, aber doch nur „vom Rand“ aus zuschauen. Die Geschichten basieren auf Interviews, die der Regisseur in der Zeit 2008-2010 geführt hat.

(Kuratiert von Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/IchHabeDirNieErzaehltWomitIchMeinGeldVerdiene

http://www.lottje.de

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 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

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

Directors Lounge Screening in der Z-Bar
Donnerstag, 25.11.2010
21:00
Discreet Structures
Films by
Toby Cornish und Johannes Braun/  jutojo Berlin

Z-Bar
Bergstraße 2
10115 Berlin-Mitte

 Discreet Structures, the title of the program with Toby Cornish and Johannes Braun, refers to the compositional qualities of their films. It also applies to the linking to local architecture or urban places, and to the ways the artists work with musical scores. Both artists’ work mainly originates in Super-8 or 16mm footage, which they shoot and then process digitally. And most films are product of collaborations with musicians.

Two visits to Sarajevo in 2003 and 2004 gave Toby the opportunity to make a structural film in this historically and politically charged place: Sarajevo Vertical. The bridge, where arch-duke Franz Ferdinand was murdered, which gave way to the declaration of war in 1914, the name Tito on a bridge, and the white graves of killed Muslims from the most recent war, all appear in the film but only as a backdrop, or as the ground on which the visitor stands. If “Sarajevo Vertical” has or needs a symbolical/political reading is up to the viewer. First of all it is the rule of composition of filmmaker Cornish to align every image to a vertical line while shooting and then edit the film on principles of repetition, rhythm, acceleration and size of the vertical line.

Toby Cornish is interested in metric structures, in interferences of loops with different lengths, which due to their complexity might lead to a chance operation, similar to musical structures of John Cage or Steve Reich, and which in the end where the result may surprise the artist as much as the audience. With “Rückbau”, a film about the destruction of the East German parliament building, he takes this strategy further. With the help of digital programming, the film composes itself and anew on each presentation.

Johannes Braun, on the other hand is less interested in chance operations but in the totality of visual-acoustic composition. His film Teufelsberg also shows his background as trained architect. The images unfold his explorations of building structures while he tries to capture traces “of hope and disillusion, of making and destroying, still to be sensed” in the rubble and the left-over walls. They also comment on already past (and forgotten) plans for future developments, including architecture drawings and a former model apartment of the already scattered utopia for a commercial hot-spot on Teufelsberg. The visually dense composition thus not only shows the beauty of the bygone structures but also contains an edge of irony.

With “Gaz”, a collective product, the filmmakers again show their strength of working with compositional structures. Gaz was composed to a graphical score, which the filmmakers and the 2 musicians worked on independently of one another. The film celebrates the early industrial designs around gasometers and gas-lights, still to be found in Berlin’s city center.

http://www.jutojo.de/home/

http://www.directorslounge.net
http://richfilm.de

More infos and film stills:
http://richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesJutojo.html