Archive 2006
Portrait Christoph Girardet + Matthias Müller
Su, November 12 4:00 pm CinemaxX 4 Guests: Christoph Girardet, Matthias Müller
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Christoph Girardet (l.), Matthias Müller
Last year Braunschweig Film Festival started a new festival section in which the alumni of the Braunschweig School of Visual Arts are showcased. This year we are delighted to have two of the most internationally-esteemed experimental filmmakers, Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller as our guests.
Christoph Girardet, born in 1966 in Langenhagen, studied at the Braunschweig School of Visual Arts. Since 1989 he has produced numerous videos and video-installations.
Matthias Müller, born in 1961 in Bielefeld, studied at both the University of Bielefeld and the Braunschweig School of Visual Arts. Since 1980 he has produced numerous films and videos.
Their individual work and joint projects are shown at some of the most important international festivals and have won many awards.
Kristall
D 2006, 14:30 min, 35 mm, colour
"Kristall" creates a melodrama inside seemingly claustrophobic mirrored cabinets. Like an anonymous viewer, the mirror observes scenes of intimacy. It creates an image within an image, providing a frame for the characters. At the same time it makes them appear disjointed and fragmented. This instrument for self-assurance becomes a powerful opponent that increases the sense of fragility, doubt, and loss twofold.
Beacon
D 2002, 15 Min, Betacam, colour, bw
"Beacon" is a montage of location shots filmed at different places around the world. Each of these sites is located by the sea. Seamlessly combining travelogue footage and appropriated clips from feature films, Beacon produces a single, imaginary place of expectation.
Mirror
D 2003, 8 min, 35 mm, colour
A woman, a man, guests at an evening party. Settings, which are gradually abandoned; the remains of an event, gazes that have lost their object.
In Mirror, frozen tableaux are animated by light alone, which creates connections but also isolates the figures and separates them from the surrounding space. Like the axis of a mirror, a tear runs through the centre of the image, separating the two halves but uniting them into a single motif at the same time. Mirror creates an atmospheric image of the 'in between', the nameless sphere between belonging and isolation.
"The characters in a tragedy, the air they breathe, the settings, are sometimes more absorbing than the tragedy itself, as are
the moments before and afterwards, when the plot is at a standstill and the dialogue is silenced." (Michelangelo Antonioni)
Manual
D 2002, 9:30 min, Betacam, colour
Combining close-ups of redundant technology gleaned from 60s US sci-fi television series with a female voice of a 40s Hollywood melodrama, "Manual" makes absolute detachment clash with magnified emotion. With its record of the minutiae of endless buttons, switches and control panels Manual reduces the notion of any manageability of life to sheer absurdity.
Phoenix Tapes #4 - Why don't you love me?
D 1999, 8:30 min, Betacam, colour, bw
The "Phoenix Tapes" show re-edited excerpts from 40 films by Alfred Hitchcock. The six chapters focus on a personal selection of various leitmotifs in Hitchcock’s work.
"#4 Why Don’t You Love Me?": The tape presents a freak show, a gallery of Hitchcock’s monsters, villains and killers paying special attention to their dubious relation to their clinging and possessive mothers.
Play
D 2003, 7:20 min, Betacam, colour, bw
Audiences in movies. In Play, the onscreen action can only be seen reflected in the facial expressions and gestures of the audience. In sequences of analogous reactions, individual behavior condenses into collective behavior. The event is transferred from the stage to the hall; audience members become the actors in an unpredictable drama.