Focus

Focus

Focus: Accomplices

For over 130 years, women have contributed to creating images for the cinema. Stories of self-empowerment lie at the heart of all important feminist movements. Cinema enables us as film-makers and audiences to show solidarity with people of yesteryear and perhaps even fall rapturously in love with them. In all decades – since the silent films of the 1910s – radical, anarchic heroines have inspired us, and we can connect with them as accomplices through time and across generations. Valuable clues into current feminist practices lurk in the archive.

We’ve gone for a bold concept with the Focus section: We’ve formed groups spanning various timeframes. We look for common links, friction points and feelings to make the experience of encountering other people a less solitary one. This time-crazy idea is inspired by Carolyn Dinshaw’snconcept of »Communities Across Time«. In »Getting Medieval«, the historian evokes queer communities in the late 14th century based on medieval texts, opening up for us and herself a desire across centuries where past and present touch.

Our programme invites you to interact with women accomplices across time. Cinema is such an ideal medium for this, as the audience and the characters on the screen can experience direct relationships while time axes can be turned all ways. We can mobilise greater energy for feminist causes when we know the achievements of different feminist positions outside our own radius.

Curators:

A Hasty Renovation

Romeo Bosetti

FR
1911
Silent film
6’
OW

Léontine helps her friend Rosalie to clean the flat of her boss Baron von Hummen, who suddenly announces that he […]

IT
1912
Silent film
9’
OW

Two married men, Toni and his father-in-law Fritz, meet unexpectedly at a party given by their lovers Lea and Lizette. […]

Alles wird gut

Angelina Maccarone

DE
1998
Spielfilm
88’
OF

This film will also be available online on our VoD platform from April 18 to April 30, 2023. Please note: […]

Ariane

Paul Czinner

DE
1931
Spielfilm
85’
dt. OmeU

»Elisabeth was the peerless embodiment of a figure that was neither woman nor man. The short hair and the Bergner […]

Filibus

Mario Roncoroni

IT
1915
Silent film
69’
OW

»Filibus’s trim suit and newsboy cap give gender boundaries a fairly forceful push […]; but still more radical is the […]

DE
1984
Short film
11’
OF

Based on a true story. Helke Sander pulls out all the stops and delivers a bold and breath-taking performance born […]

DE
2023
Documentary
82’
dt. OmeU

This film will also be available online on our VoD platform from April 18 to April 30, 2023. Please note: […]

Indictment, revolt, rebellion. One Thousand Ways to Skin It reveals various styles of performance-based music videos as self-empowerment against entrenched […]

Pétronille Wins the Grand Steeple Chase

Romeo Bosetti, Georges Rémond

FR
1913
Silent film
7’
OW

Prétronille is convinced of what she’s doing: She pawns her furniture and bets all the money on her jockey husband […]