PARALLEL SECTIONS
BRUTALITÄT IN STEIN / BRUTALITY IN STONE
ALEXANDER KLUGE – 1961 / GERMANY
In this experimental short film, Alexander Kluge demonstrates how Nazi architecture used dimensions of inhuman and super-human scale to bolster the regime’s politics of the same kind. Shots of huge neo-classical architectural structures from the Nazi period are confronted with equally anti-human national-socialist language as a voice-over.
SOPHIA DE MELLO BREYNER ANDRESEN
JOÃO CÉSAR MONTEIRO – 1969 / PORTUGAL
Produced as part of a series of documentaries on leading figures in Portuguese art and culture, this short film serves as a dual record. First, it accompanies the illustrious poet and her family in small moments at home, while her voice blends with the coastal landscape of the Algarve region. On the other hand, it is João César Monteiro’s debut film, and the strong presence of the sea as an evocative and dramatic element serves as a preview of what the director would unfold throughout his filmography.
LA CHAMBRE / THE ROOM
CHANTAL AKERMAN – 1972 / BELGIUM
A long, slow pan repeatedly sweeps across the space of a room without stopping. On the bed, Chantal Akerman, first sitting motionless and then, as the camera passes by again, eating an apple. We find ourselves both in front of a mysterious self-portrait of the filmmaker in her favorite place and in front of the equivalent, for her cinema, of a still life: gathering her furniture in a repetitive description so that she can enjoy it later.
LA FORMA DELLA CITTÀ / THE FORM OF THE CITY
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI – 1974 / ITALY
In 1974, Italian television asked Pier Paolo Pasolini to actively participate in a television broadcast with a documentary film. The result was a reflective and poetic film divided into two parts, a clear example of a study of urban anthropology through the cinematic language of non-fiction.
REMEDIOS VARO 1913-1963
JOMÍ GARCÍA ASCOT – 1967 / MEXICO
An introduction to the imaginative pictorial universe of Remedios Varo, interspersed with brief excerpts from texts by various poets: Brentano, Becquer, Tröxler, Hölderlin, and Plotinus.
