19 September 2017
Tell It to the Stones
The Work of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub
Retrospective of films from 15th October to 5th November at the
Akademie der Künste, the fsk Cinema, the Brotfabrik, and the Zeughauskino
Invitation to the press screening:
Thursday, 5th October 2017, 3:15 pm
fsk Cinema, Segitzdamm 2, 10969 Berlin
Selection of films
Machorka-Muff (Huillet/Straub, 1962, 17 min.)
Einleitung zu Arnold Schönbergs ‚Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene‘ (Huillet/Straub, 1972, 15 min.), OmE
Toute révolution est un coup de dés (Huillet/Straub, 1977, 10 min.), OmE
L'Arrotino (Huillet/Straub, 2001, 5 min.)
Incantati (Huillet/Straub, 2002, 5 min.)
Une visite au Louvre (Huillet/Straub, 2003, 48 min.)
Un héritier (Jean-Marie Straub, 2010, 21 min.)
La Madre (Jean-Marie Straub, 2011, 20 min.)
Registration is requested:
Tel. 030 679 282 69 or mail@rische-pr.de
Since the beginning of the 1960s, the filmmakers Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub have caused a sensation with their films. In a collaboration lasting almost 50 years, Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub created one of the most influential and at once most controversial works of modern cinema. In the 1960s, some saw in its unconventionality the beginning of a new German cinema, while others were appalled by the alleged lack of respect towards traditional cinema.
The oeuvre of Huillet/Straub today encompasses almost 50 films which are, amongst others, based on materials by Böll, Kafka, Hölderlin, and Brecht. The films not only transform and translate text, but also music (Bach, Schönberg) and painting (Cézanne), as well as clouds, stones, wind, and light. With the films of Huillet/Straub, the cinema becomes a space where something happens and becomes present sensually and politically, making film a medium for fundamentally calling into question the present as well as the conventions of cinema and its commercialisation. This makes the films of Huillet/Straub highly topical.
In the course of the exhibition Tell It to the Stones (until 19.11.2017) at the Akademie der Künste, the comprehensive, chronologically arranged retrospective of the oeuvre of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub will present films which have not been screened in Berlin for 27 years, as well as many films which have never been shown here. The programme begins on 15th October at the Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg and will, until 5th November, chronologically move through the cinemas Brotfabrik (19. to 23.10.), Zeughauskino (25.10. to 3.11.), and fsk (4. and 5.11.).
“Not to be reconciled is also a stance one can take for making films. A tenacious refusal of all forces which work towards a homogenisation”, the film critic Serge Daney wrote in the Cahiers du cinema in 1975, on the occasion of the cinema release of Moses und Aaron. Huillet/Straubs refusal of homogenisation at once demands abundance sensuality, and richness – an undisciplined vitality. In this sense, resistance becomes a way of life and a driving force. Huillet/Straub always worked on their films with humour, creativity, and generosity, not with stubborn doggedness, though almost every film by the two film legends was created despite all resistance.
The film programme is complemented by a selection of films by Manfred Blank, Pedro Costa, Ted Fendt, Peter Nestler, Jean-Claude Rousseau, Rudolf Thome, and Frans van de Staak. These films stand for friendships and a common concern with Huillet and Straub.
The retrospective is being organised by Antonia Weiße and Tobias Hering in cooperation with BELVA Film, Zeughauskino, Kino fsk, Kino in der Brotfabrik. The film prints come from the inventories of the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, the Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst, the Zeughauskino, the Stadtkino Verleihs Vienna, the Austrian Film Museum, the Munich Film Museum, and BELVA Film. Wherever possible, analogue 35mm prints are used.
Further information on the exhibition and the dates of the retrospective is available at huilletstraub-berlin.net. Press material and photos can be found in the press section at www.adk.de and rische-pr.
Press contact on behalf of the Akademie der Künste:
rische & co pr - Claudia Rische, Juliane Pielot,
Tel. 030 679 282 69, mail@rische-pr.de