German-Greek Filmic Dialogues on the Past and Future
Through a series of screenings that unfold over the course of 2024, Greek and German short and feature films introduce their own dialects and dialectics, assembling different approaches to a common historical past. Micro-narratives and off-beat, soft testimonies in the plural form; studies on mythology and role-plays with masks of national identity; jigsaw puzzles with fragments from the archive; loud and invisible gestures and artifacts break the distance from historical sources and prompt surprising readings on different sides of the border. In the end, history is brought to the present and projected into the future, whereas the language of cinema renders history a sensation, an instinct, and a collective experience.
27.03.2024 Episode 1: History and Myth
Attempts at appropriating ancient Greek myths fling into the inexhaustible pool of modern history, in two distinct cinematic gestures of exploring contemporary European and national identity. On the one hand, the debut feature by New German Cinema trailblazer Ulrike Ottinger flirts with camp, Dionysian spirit, and Dadaism, to deliver a unique artwork of experimental ethnography. On the other hand, the first feature-length fiction film by Lakis Papastathis – one of the most influential figures in the evolution of Greek documentary – follows the adventurous route of an abduction at the turn of the century; eventually, he unfolds an essentially unique vision of the past’s imprint onto the present. In the end, the Greek word for tradition translates as a gift, an act of concession or surrender, a legacy, or a consignment.
18:30
Laokoon und Söhne. Die Verwandlungsgeschichte der Esmeralda del Rio [Laocoon and Sons. The Story of the Transformation of Esmeralda del Rio]
Ulrike Ottinger, 1972/73, 50΄
(German with Greek and English subtitles)
&
19:30
On the Time of Hellenes
Lakis Papasthatis, 1981,100΄
(Greek with English subtitles)
As the widow Olimpia Vincitor, she embarks on a search for her past. Under the name Linda MacNamara, she triumphs as a skater in a duel against the parachute lady Kakalia Katzen. Tristan Tzara appears at the ritual festivals of Laura Molloy’s ladies and becomes director of the traveling circus troupe Laokoon and Sons. The death of an artist and the destruction of her studio by seven Erinyes, who emerge from the water in the guise of firemen, are directly related to the appearance of the circus. Finally, Esmeralda del Rio’s transformation into a new male role, that of gigolo Jimmy Junod, brings a touch of adventure to the modest but full life of Veronika Dalton, who had taken the name Hubert Dupavillon. But Jimmy Junod’s profile is known to the police all over the world.
In 1900, a group of bandits kidnap a young bourgeois and take refuge in the mountains, waiting for ransom for his release. The young man develops a friendship with the leader of the bandits and realizes that the life of these outlaws is much more authentic than his own. A film with references to Vizyinos, Papadiamantis, and popular culture: the old pamphlets, the mythical faces, the Romeic traditions and rituals, and the deep religiosity, always with the harsh mountainous Greek landscape in the background. Papastathis, also outlining the contrast between banditry as a popular uprising and the formation of the modern bourgeois state, finally shows that older forms of popular culture with more modern forms somehow always coexisted.
Stay tuned for the episodes to come:
15.05.2024 HISTORY PROJECTED / History and Archive
03.07.2024 HISTORY PROJECTED / Summer Histories
09.10.2024 HISTORY PROJECTED / Building History
20.11.2024 HISTORY PROJECTED / Women Reply
Read More: https://www.goethe.de/ins/gr/en/sta/ath/ver.cfm?event_id=25403728