University of Fine Arts of Hamburg: shorts selection Observations 1-10

Sunday, October 27, Kino Bize, 15:30 - 17:00


By Marlene Denningmann
Hamburg, September 16th 2013.


Dear Riga, I want you to see ten films from Hamburg. It is not because all of those filmmakers have been fellow students of mine at the University of Fine Art. What impresses me in each of those films is their uncompromised choice of form. They succeed to offer a perspective that can only exist through the eyes of those very film authors. For the duration of 70 minutes in a dark projection room in October, their sight will be ours and our minds will follow theirs. We will examine concepts and ideas, structures and forms as well as personal lives. Conclusions not included. 70 Minutes later, we will be back with ourselves. Thinking. Slowly getting used to see with our own eyes again. I am convinced that is the best that cinema can achieve.

 

 


Yours, Marlene Denningmann.
Marlene Denningmann is a German filmmaker, videoartist and curator based in Hamburg.

 

*The screening and the commentary by Denningmann will be in English

Strings  / Strings, Annika Kahrs, Germany, 2010, 9 min

A string quartet plays the first bars of Beethoven's Opus 18 No. 4 in C Minor from the 19th century. The balanced homogeneity comes to an end as the music stops after the first melody and the musicians exchange places with the player to their right.

 


A Film  / Ein Film, Franziska Kabisch, Germany, 2012, 3 min

 

What does a house look like? How would you depict a city? And what am I? A human being? A woman? A sister? A student? An artist? A suspect? A Film is a film about names, terms and the problems that arise from them.



Light as a wave, p.13 / Licht als Welle, Katja Lell, Germany, 2013, 3 min

The film allows the viewer to immerse in the abstract imagery of a school physics book. From the interplay of image and sound emerges a mystical-religious-sounding work, which seems to be associated neither with the intimacy of the text, nor the teaching character of the selected images. (Jannis Lehmann)



What I spot becomes a portal entering a train of thought / Was ich ansehe wird Portal zu einem Gedankengang, Chinook Schneider, Germany, 2011, 8 min

The first voyage to an Arab country, Lebanon. Where to connect? How to shake the images that reappear over and over again.


Propaganda 1, Louis Fried, Germany, 2010, 6 min


Shots of a funfair, partly filmed through the bald trees in the park nearby, create an alien atmosphere.



Leaving Monochromia, Nicolaas Schmidt, Germany, 2013, 4 min


A three-part photo-video essay. Drive-by monochrome photos with the colors of the rainbow in the soundtrack, video clips of a ritual solemnity in color, drive-by photos in a dark green-blue towards a melody of grey.

A story from the foreign matter trap  / Geschichte aus der Fremdteilfalle, Jan Eichberg, Germany, 2008, 2 min


Using a magical tape recorder, my enchanting everyday life mixes with the war diary of my grandfather.



The Last Days of Summer / Die letzten Tage des Sommers, Klaas Dierks, Germany, 2006, 13 min

With the sale of the co-owned house the loss of the dear-won home looms threateningly. Fear of debonding lead to an open controversy between a mother and her son.

 



Night in Olympia / Nacht in Olympia, Timo Schierhorn, Germany, 2009, 15 min

 

An essayistic approach to the persona of the father, who only exists in form of images and old movies. The examination of the found footage leads to such events as Christmas Eve and a work out for the sports tournament.



there / dort, Angela Anzi, Germany, 2012, 9 min

The film reveals sequences of theatrically installed spaces. In these landscapes a person frequently interacts with elusive objects in places where the air space deserves a special credit.