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Erfurt - Gesichter eines Bezirkes

Documentary film about the agricultural and industrial district in Thuringia. The focus is on the district town of Erfurt, with Gotha, Eisenach and Weimar as other towns worthy of mention and steeped in tradition. This documentary, which has the characteristics of a promotional film, still bears witness to the wealth of its owners and the cities, but more than ever to all those who used their skills in the context of monument protection in the GDR to restore these buildings with their Gothic and Renaissance splendor and preserve them for posterity forever.

Erfurt - Gesichter eines Bezirkes

NR 1987
Dhaulagiri, Mountain of Winds

In October 1984, Pierre Béghin, an engineer from Grenoble, and Jean-Noël Roche, a high-mountain guide, completed the Himalayan ascent of Dhaulagiri (8,172 m). The expedition's context: seven people crossed Nepal to Muri, collected accounts from trekkers—including that of the author Robert Rieffel—and attended Sherpa prayers at base camp. Then, the two of them embarked on a rocky and snowy route without supplemental oxygen. At over 5,000 meters, on the mountain of winds, Jean-Noël Roche made a paragliding flight. The climbers brought back footage with their Super 8 camera from 6,500 meters, but only photographs have been able to confirm their presence on the summit ridge of the seventh highest peak in the world.

Dhaulagiri, Mountain of Winds

10.0 1985
John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation

The Sixth Floor museum at Dealey Plaza presents a group of six short films about the life, death and enduring legacy of John F. Kennedy that are shown in the Sixth Floor Exhibit of the former Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, Texas. The sudden death of this young, vibrant world leader sent shock waves around the globe. The assassination remains one of the most vividly remembered and controversial events of the century. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is a permanent exhibit in the former Texas School Book Depsitory. The films included in this exhibit have been adapted as an educational video examining the life, times, death and legacy of President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation

NR 1989
Bronislaw Malinowski: Off the Verandah

Bronislaw Malinowski changed the way that field studies were carried out. He worked on a remote group of Pacific islands—the Trobriands—and lived for long periods among the people he was studying. A brilliant linguist, he quickly learned their language and later published books which brought the islanders to life. The idea that native peoples were primitive savages was altered for good with Malinowski's insight into their mastery of their world.

Bronislaw Malinowski: Off the Verandah

NR 1985
As You See

In 'As You See', Farocki searches for those instances and facts in the history of technology that have been overlooked or ignored, also exploring the ambivalent relationship between technologies developed for civil use and those designed for military purposes. Thus the film for instance describes how in the 1970s workers at the British arms factory Lucas Aerospace attempted to develop socially useful products to replace the company's military output. Rather than following a linear argument, this essay-film juxtaposes disparate images and weaves them into a mosaic-like structure which makes it possible for the viewers to make their own connections between the different images as well as between the images and the commentary.

As You See

7.0 1986
Surf Punks

Excellent documentary about the very early LA hardcore punk scene that almost seems accidental. Upon visiting LA in the summer of '81 the film maker notices that strangely enough Punk doesn't seem to be dead in L.A., but on the contrary, there seems to be a massive teenage movement going on. He decides to make a short documentary about it. As he says (not without irony); "Since everything happens a few years earlier in the US, I can show the parents back home what's in store for them". He was ofcourse witness to the baby steps of the hardcore scene. This is the only documentary of the era that is not sensationalizing or mythologizing. It doesn't talk to any of the scene "stars" but rather follows a few disenfranchised suburban kids and runaways (in Venice beach I think). A rare look into a self destructive and nihilistic scene, where the main motives seem to be restlessness and soul crushing boredom. Perhaps one of the very few documentaries that give this era a human face.

Surf Punks

NR 1981
Time of Darkness and Silence

An investigation of Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous film production of “Tiefland” during the Holocaust, one which used Sinti extras under forced labor conditions. After filming finished in 1944, these extras were sent to Auschwitz. Nina Gladitz interviews the survivors and perpetrators, wondering if Riefenstahl knew this would happen at the end of production. Tiefland was filmed from 1940-1944 but was not released until 1954. Leni Riefenstahl sued Gladitz over the documentary.

Time of Darkness and Silence

6.0 1982
Ces malades qui nous gouvernent

From testimonies and medical explanations, an evocation of the last fifty years, seen through the different illnesses of the main heads of state in the world. The state of health of the men in power who have made the history of the last half-century has often been deficient at critical moments of decisions that affected millions of people. The dramatic consequences of Chamberlain's illness in front of Hitler in Munich, Roosevelt's illness in front of Stalin in Yalta.

Ces malades qui nous gouvernent

10.0 1981
City of Angels

Combining video, performance art, documentary, and tableau vivant, this short piece set in what appears to be part of the Ayutthaya Ruins in Bangkok, Thailand, begins with a panoramic shot of various Thai folks dressed in traditional garb and sleeping in the grass as a woman narrates. The rest of the piece is broken into six unbroken shots of these individuals in still poses depicting both some aspect of Thai life as well as suggesting its disquieting alienation from modernity, as the same woman narrator now sings. The final shot is again of the ensemble sleeping, suggesting that the previous montage was, indeed, a collective dream.

City of Angels

NR 1983
The Ballad of the Wood

"The Ballad of the Wood" reveals the traditional architecture of the houses of the Western Black Sea region for centuries has been passed down from father to son, from master to apprentice through secrets and a technique known as "canti". Some of the houses shown have been standing for the last 100 to 150 years. The film honors the great craftsman of the past who utilized the "dizeme" technique through an emphasis on structures that are 300 years old. These examples are some of the most unique to be found in the Western Black Sea region. This craft has been passed down from generation to generation. Now only a few old and tired practitioners are left and they reveal to the camera their anti-earthquake construction techniques. The average age of the craftsmen is 80 years old.

The Ballad of the Wood

NR 1987
Het Gerucht: Rosas danst Rosas

A short documentary about the creation process of Rosas danst Rosas, the performance that forced Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s international breakthrough and has become a benchmark in the history of postmodern dance. This documentary, directed by Stefaan Decostere for the BRT cultural programme Het Gerucht [The Rumour, ed.], uses fragments of rehearsals and interviews with De Keersmaeker and composer Thierry De Mey, offering a glimpse of the choreographic creative process in which repeated abstract movements play a key role.

Het Gerucht: Rosas danst Rosas

NR 1983