Lene Berg

By Laura Lizuma

Conversations about art and those who share professional realities always resemble a collective psychology session where, whatever you say, all remains trapped in one's own head, and, although expressed in words and illustrated with images, it only seems to participate in a stream of consciousness. Those who do not have anything to say can get something out of it. These conversations in front of the eyes or on a screen disarm the clichés in which we are telling them, frames that protect the belonging to one or other human species, and an imaginary horizon – a table – as a boundary between us and them, while sharing up-longing mind and inclinations of the counter dimensions. There is an obedient dog at the each end of the table that not only protects peace of the conversation and devours the remains that have fallen on the ground but every time when a frame slides by, he also highlights the humanitarian border beyond which the film is no longer happening.

Kopfkino, as expected, happens in the head, not on the canvas. And just probably it is a woman's head, where from an angle of eight types of personalities appear feminine cravings to subdue and devote at the same time. Probably it is Lene Berg who brings cinema to the negotiating table to gut it, modify and slice it until she finds a place in the fine arts and a way to digest it with salacity. Through stories of foreign experience and by swirling the curls of lust, ladies discourse evoke thoughts of what is actually true and until the end of the show the mind becomes as smooth as a thigh dressed in red latex.

Wednesday, October 23, Kino Bize, 19:30-20:45

Kopfkino, documentary / experimental, 2012, 75 min

Directors Statement

Kopfkino is neither documentary nor fiction. It is an accumulation of stories about a world centered around sexuality and power where grown-ups play for real. Kopfkino is about staging a story with the understanding that theatrical and fictional elements can create a basis of authenticity inside and outside cinema. Looking at the film, one cannot be sure whether the stories the women tell are true. However, what is important is  what each storyteller reveals about her experience. By placing the women in a theatrical and fictional frame, I wanted to highlight that they are not victims but performers. The fact that they talk, eat and think dressed as sexual clichés highlights a certain complexity: They are equally subjects and objects, powerful and powerless, masters and slaves, passive and active. (In fact, one of the performers is an actor  with no personal experience in S&M.) 

The film set is built as a two-dimensional collage where dissonant elements are placed in the same frame/image to create a surreal and extraordinary atmosphere. I allowed the camera to move continuously with its own tempo in order to avoid a predictable outcome.  The autonomous camera movement gives the film a very special rhythm and creates a flow between the different stories and conversations. (Lene Berg)