Films from Germany

July 27, 2009

By: Kelly Hamilton

The filmfest returns for another semester of great films, and this term is devoted to German films. This selection, entitled "The Burden of Dreams," is put together by Mark Hipper of the Fine Arts Department, who writes:

The juxtaposition and pairing of the following films for this 3rd term programme for the Film Fest explores and opens up a number of interconnected ideas around cinema as spectacle and as a way of articulating ideas.

Both 'movies' and documentaries can make mesmerizing cinema and at the same time explore and elaborate interesting ideas, and these films offer a foil and an elaboration of these ideas in relation to one another. These films, selected from German Cinema, offer interesting examples of the potential of filmmaking outside of the usual Hollywood or mainstream cinema genres directed towards market appeal...

We'll start this term off with the famous 1935 film, Triumph of the Will, from the controversial Leni Riefenstahl.

This legendary propaganda documentary of the Third Reich's 1934 Party Rally in Nuremberg won several awards, not only in Germany but even in the United States, France, Sweden and other countries. The aesthetically stunning, innovative and haunting work by Riefenstahl was commissioned by Adolf Hitler who wanted a film which would move, appeal to and impress an audience which was not interested in politics. The film does just that, blurring or distorting the real into an aesthetically dangerous eloquence. This film later troubled the further career of Leni Riefenstahl particularly in a post-war and accountable Germany.

It's a long film, 155 min, so bring chocolate to give you energy and join us in Eden Grove Red at 19:00 on Tuesday. As usual, the films are free!

For more information and a complete programme, please see the Filmfest website.