Mark Webber
DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT contains collected pieces from publicity films with a common element: they show actors before they start and then begin to play what they are directed to represent.
100 years after her grandparents emigrated to the USA, the filmmaker made the reverse journey and settled in a remote village. Her film diary documents her assimilation into the customs of an ageing community, and observes a rural way of life that has changed little over the centuries.
To accompany images of cherry blossom against a radiant blue sky, a voice reads an autobiographical account of a relationship. The text is excerpted from the Warren Commission testimony of the wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Titled by the maiden names of their widows, the film parallels the lives of both women.
A trilogy of films, united on a single reel, which offer a magical glimpse at New York long since passed. In each, a young woman drifts through the city’s streets and parks, embodying the artists’ distinctive qualities of melancholia and childlike wonder.
During a family holiday in the South of France, the filmmaker reflects on his life and career, interweaving excerpts from previous works, fragments of poetry, and the wartime memories of elderly neighbours.
Two actors perform absurd actions in sets composed of geometric shapes. Two experts try to explain what it all means. Goofing off in positive/negative space, Robert Nelson and collaborators William T. Wiley, Ron Hudson, R.G. Davis and Steve Reich construct a spirited work that invokes Alfred Jarry, Dada and improvised theatre.
Marine Corps pilot William Rankin ejected from his jet into a severe thunderstorm, surviving lightening strikes in a 40-minute descent. 50 years later, his account is the starting point for a contemplation of American national identity that takes in revolutionary war re-enactments, high school football games, gun shows, firefighters and border patrols.
The screening series PLENTY proposes a new way of looking at artists’ films by showing only a single work, regardless of its duration. Each film is given the freedom to unfold on its own terms, and the viewer is given the time and space to consider it.
Snakes alive! For the annual Festa dei Serpari in Cocullo, a statue of San Domenico is adorned with snakes and paraded through the village streets, escorted by bagpipes and a marching band. Traditional foods are prepared using time-honoured methods. Pezzella’s dynamic film collides sounds and images as it follows this extraordinary ritual and its participants.
Ägypten takes viewers on a journey into the silent world of sign language, exploring visual communication between people of all ages.
The End follows the last day on earth for six of ‘our friends’ living in the shadow of the atomic bomb.