BERLIN. ESSAY.

SCREENING:
FRIDAY, 11.12.2015, 17:30

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SEPTEMBERFIFTEENTHTWOTHOUSANDTHIRTEEN (FÜNFZEHNTERSEPTEMBERZWEITAUSENDDREIZEHN)

One shot; in them: two images. A voice – the voice of filmmaker Caroline Pitzen – over the image. Poetic streams of consciousness, Virginia Woolf, a personal testament. A cinematic diary, a day in a life, as part of a bigger series, of which we are showing one. A film of one’s own.

Caroline Pitzen, D 2014, 3 min (world premiere)
cinematograpy: Caroline Pitzen
languages: German (with English subtitles)
guest: Caroline Pitzen

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DIXI TOILET

This short film is part of an ongoing series of haiku films that I started in 2014. The idea is to create films that resemble in form and length the very short Japanese form of poetry named haiku. The essence of haiku is called “cutting” (kiru) which can be understood as a juxtaposition of two images or ideas that are being separated by a “cutting word” (kireji). By this separation the inherent relation and similarity of the two juxtaposed images are being revealed. The goal of a haiku film is to take this principle and translate it into a cinematic language.
(Angelo Wulf)

Angelo Wulf, D 2015, 7 min (world premiere)
cinematograpy: Angelo Wulf
languages: German (with English subtitles)
guest: Angelo Wulf

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THE SWIMMER (DER SCHWIMMER)

The artificial and hermetic world displayed in ’The Swimmer’ is based on the map of the city of Berlin. Its structure and order is literally drawn onto it. In other words a cartographic representation of the world is imagined on an existing cartographic representation of Berlin which is in itself an abstraction. The texture of this world is characterized through sound. There are various creatures that follow different rules, which are rooted in an inner logic, inaccessible to us. Therefore we are only able to witness this logic through the superficiality of image and sound. This logic, based on personal association, is represented in the image of ’The Swimmer’. The world is undergoing structural upheavel in order to constantly recreate itself.
(Marcin Malaszczak)

Marcin Malaszczak, D 2010, 30 min
cinematography: Michal Grabowski
with: Maria Christine Brehmer, John Heys, Erik Drescher, Karsten Gabriel
languages: German (with English subtitles)
guest: Marcin Malaszczak

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FACE B
The b-side of a record often contains hidden treasures and secrets. When Leila, actress, singer, and director, decides to make her first feature, Berlin Telegram, a lot happens between the lines. She says she is auditioning for the film, while in fact she is its director and main protagonist. With a suitcase full of music, she travels between Berlin and Paris and meets musicians and actors on the way. Her story is told as a mysterious hybrid somewhere between autobiography and fiction – poetry, perhaps. Leila decides to steal her own images, to secretly pocket her b-sides to edit a new, even more ambiguous film. How often are you allowed to tell a story? How often can you reassemble your footage? There is no answer to that question. Instead, there is a new film.
(Forum Expanded)

Leila Albayaty, D 2015, 40 min
cinematography: Michel Balagué
with: Leila Albayaty, Cristoforo Spoto, Ivan Imperiali, Alain Rylant, Jef Mercelis
languages: English, French (with English subtitles)

guest: Leila Albayaty

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OFF-WHITE TULIPS (KIRIK BEYAZ LALELER)

The last thing we see and hear is a place and a date: „Berlin March 1st 2013“. Berlin, though not featured in the film, is the essential starting point and creative exile of filmmaker Aykan Safoğlu for his beautiful cinematic journey. Safoğlu created a dense and enigmatic collage for this both personal and political essay film, of thoughts and discourse, which are told entirely through photographs that are layed down in front of the camera eye. The African-American novelist, essayist, and social critic James Baldwin, his writings about racism, homosexulity and his journey to Istanbul form the focal point around which the film centers, and which it cleverly and touchingly intertwines with the queer stories from Aykan Safoğlu’s private life.

Aykan Safoğlu, D/TRK 2013, 24 min
cinematography: Aykan Safoğlu
languages: Turkish with English subtitles