May 2010
Top Kino, Poool Distribution, coop99 and Amour Fou in cooperation with the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Falter - Stadtzeitung Wien and ASIFA AUSTRIA present a Pipilotti Rist double feature on Sunday, May 2.
The Colour of Your Socks - A Year with Pipilotti Rist will celebrate its Austrian premiere at this occasion. Filmmaker Michael Hegglin will introduce his portrait of the Swiss artist and participate in a Q&A after the screening. The documentary will be followed by Pipilotti Rist's first feature film Pepperminta, which was cooproduced by coop99 and theatrically released in Austria on April 30 by Poool Distribution.
Sunday, May 2, 2010 @ Top Kino Vienna
6.30 pm The Colour of Your Socks - A Year with Pipilotti Rist
8.30 pm Pepperminta
At the end of May, the shooting of Beryl Koltz's Hot Hot Hot commences in Luxembourg. The filmmaker about her first fiction feature film:
"It seems that in the world of cinema only good-looking people are entitled to love each other. For precisely this reason, I have chosen to portray two people who don't fall into this category. In the course of regular visits to the sauna, I was able to observe the unbelievable diversity of shapes and sizes which are deliberately ignored by the media, for example the sheer lack of conformity with respect to buttocks: some are round, angular, oval or flat, others muscular, flabby, really small or huge, yet again some hairy and others quite red and that is to name but a few!"
"All bodies are interesting, worth showing and being seen. I wrote 'Hot Hot Hot' to highlight our society's norms and conventions and - in contrast - the uniqueness and otherness of each and every individual person."
March 2010
We are happy to announce that the internationally successful filmmaker and cinematographer Elfi Mikesch will receive the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Film Award, together with film director Werner Schroeter. The award ceremony will take place on March 14, 2010 at Oetker-Halle in Bielefeld, Germany.
The jury praised Elfi Mikesch's sensitive directing and her "groundbreaking" work as cinematographer, in the course of which she repeatedly drew new forms of expression from technology. "Especially for Rosa von Praunheim, Monika Treut and Werner Schroeter, she created images who unite truthfulness and dream, fiction and reality."
This year, Amour Fou produces Elfi Mikesch's latest film project Judenburg - Profil Perdu, a documentary about her birth place, realised in coproduction with Austrian public service broadcaster ORF and Medea Film. The feature film Fever, also produced by Amour Fou, is in development.
Two Projects by Frederick Kiesler will be shown at the Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film in Graz. Filmmaker Heinz Emigholz will be present for the screenings on March 19 at 2.30 pm and March 21 at 11 am.
Michael Hegglin's The Colour of Your Socks - A Year with Pipilotti Rist can be seen at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek (Denmark) where it accompanies the Homo Sapiens Sapiens installation by Pipilotti Rist. On April 13 at 22 pm and April 14 at 4.05 pm, the film will be broadcasted on SF2.
Eni Brandner's Granica won yet another award, for Best Art Film at Corto Helvetico al Femminile in Lugano.
January 2010
The festival premiere of Michael Hegglin's The Colour of Your Socks - A Year with Pipilotti Rist will take place at Solothurner Filmtage (January 21-28, 2010) on January 27 at 2.15 am.
A DVD was released by Pelican Films at the end of the year and is available in bookstores throughout Switzerland as well as via artfilm.ch.
Stereo, 16:9, Region 2
Languages: Swiss German, German, English, Italian
Subtitles: German, English, French, Italian
On February 6 at 10.10 pm, The Colour of Your Socks will be broadcast on 3sat.
November - December 2009
We are very happy to announce that Eni Brandner's Granica was awarded with the Premio "Pablo del Amo" al Mejor Montaje, the Award for Best Editing, at the Semana de Cine Experimental de Madrid (November 20-27, 2009). Furthermore, the film won the Under 35 Prize at INVIDEO Milano (November 11-15, 2009): "In a very essential way, through animation, the author follows the traces and the bruises of the war in ex Yugoslavia in a journey which leads to a bitter and speechless reflection."
Granica will be shown next at Animateka Ljubljana (December 7-13) in the competition programme.
September - October 2009
The international premiere of Heinz Emigholz’s Two Projects by Frederick Kiesler takes place at the Toronto International Film Festival in the program Wavelengths on September 11 at 6.30 pm.
The film is the final part of a trilogy dealing with buildings by Adolf Loos, Rudolph Schindler and Frederick Kiesler. It presents two projects of the Austrian architecture visionary: the model for an "Endless House", currently exhibited at the Kiesler Foundation Vienna, and "The Shrine of the Book", a building that was realised on the grounds of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in collaboration with Armand Bartos.
The Austrian premiere of Two Projects by Frederick Kiesler will take place at the Viennale Vienna International Film Festival this autumn. Furthermore, the film is invited to the Vancouver International Film Festival in October and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in November. Heinz Emigholz will present the film himself at New York's Cooper Union on October 3 in the course of the conference Architecture Moves.
In the weeks to come, the other two films of the trilogy, Loos Ornamental and Schindler's Houses, will be shown in New York, Berlin and Vienna. Schindler's Houses will be screened within the scope of Architecture Moves at the Anthology Film Archives in New York on October 1 and the Astor Film Lounge in Berlin on September 12 at 11 am. That's also where Loos Ornamental will be presented on September 13 at 11 am. In Vienna, the film will be shown at the Looshaus on Michaelaplatz, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the building, on September 27 at 10.30 am and 1.45 pm.
Michael Hegglin's documentary The Colour of Your Socks - A Year with Pipilotti Rist has just been completed. For a whole year, Hegglin accompanied the Swiss artist around the world - while she was working on installations for the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the ART Basel, at her studio in Zurich or shooting her most recent work, the feature film Pepperminta. For the first time, Pipilotti Rist let a documentary filmmaker into her world, providing insight into her creative process, the development of projects and the collaboration with her team.
The Colour of Your Socks will be shown for the first time on September 6 at noon at cinema Riffraff in Zurich. Swiss Television SF1 will broadcast the film on September 13 at noon (rerun on September 19 at 9.55 am).
August 2009
Eni Brandner's Granica, coproduced by Amour Fou and artistically supported by Bady Minck, has just been completed. The experimental animation was shot around the temporary border of the internationally not recognized "Republic of Serbian Krajina", one of the focal points in the Yugoslavian/Croatian war. Twelve years after the end of the conflict, the traces of altercation are still present. Delapidated, destroyed houses act as unintentional memorials, warding off oblivion, waiting for their owners.
Granica's world premiere takes place at the Brisbane International Film Festival on July 31 at 6.30 pm.
July 2009
Anja Salomonowitz’ award-winning film Kurz davor ist es passiert (It happened just before) has just been released on DVD by Filmgalerie 451.
It happened just before is an artistic confrontation with the global phenomenon of trafficking in women. Anja Salomonowitz has chosen an unusual approach to her theme: the film is based on real narratives by women who were the objects of trafficking, these accounts were then re-worked into a documentary screenplay by the director. The stories are retold not by actors but by people who might have an affinity to the events and places in the film: a customs officer, a village inhabitant, a barkeeper in a bordello, a diplomat and a taxi driver.
Is it possible to relate the gruesome experiences of female sex and labour trafficking without tears and melodrama? Anja Salomonowitz's documentary responds to this dilemma with a provocative experiment. Her narrators create a parallel narrative: they are the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the female trafficking problem. As these five Austrians play themselves they simultaneously give voice to the silenced women who go unnoticed everyday.
Mattias Frey, Senses of Cinema
DVD
Dolby Digital 2.0, 16:9, All Regions
Subtitles: English, French
Extras: Interview with Anja Salomonowitz (A 2009, 15 min), photo gallery, study material, trailer
DVD available via www.filmgalerie451.de
May 2009
Heinz Emigholz’s Two Projects by Frederick Kiesler has been invited to the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (April 30 - May 5) for its world premiere. The film links two projects of Austrian architecture-visionary Frederick Kiesler: the design for an "Endless House" that was never realised and only exists in model form, currently exhibited at the Kiesler Foundation Vienna, and "The Shrine of the Book", a building realised in collaboration with Armand Bartos on the grounds of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The film has just been completed and marks the third and final part of the film trilogy realised by Heinz Emigholz on the buildings of Adolf Loos, Rudolph Schindler and Frederick Kiesler.
March - April 2009
We are happy to announce the start of the shooting of Susanne Brandstätter's documentary The Future's Past - Creating Cambodia, the premiere of the Free Radicals film&music soirée in New York and Hamburg, and the participation of three Amour Fou productions at the Diagonale in Graz.
At the end of March, the shooting of Susanne Brandstätter's documentary The Future's Past - Creating Cambodia starts in Cambodia. The film will be shot in Phnom Penh, Tbong Khmon, Sot Nikum, and Paris, and is scheduled to be completed in 2010.
The Future's Past focuses on Cambodia today, seen through the eyes of three Cambodian youths and their families: one living in Phnom Penh, one in the country, far from the globalized centers of the world, and one in Paris. The film reveals the emotional, physical and intellectual impact that the Khmer Rouge Tribunal has on the youngsters, their families and the Cambodian people. After thirty years of silence, the past atrocities will be discussed publicly and on TV: five senior Khmer Rouge leaders being held accountable for nearly 2 million dead - among them S-21 prison warden Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch - are to be tried by an international tribunal. However, in a society where relatives, friends and neighbors belonged to the thousands of perpetrators, the burning question is: why? Each youth goes on a quest to find his or her own personal answer.
The film&music soirée Free Radicals presents film and music in condensed form: The program includes brief musical compositions and short films rarely heard or seen in standard concert or cinema settings. By combining them, new rhythms, dramatic possibilities and interactions between sound and image are made possible.
The soirée was devised by Amour Fou and Minotaurus Film in collaboration with Klangforum Wien. After the world premiere at the Biennale di Venezia and further performances in Vienna, Luxembourg, and Bruxelles, the program will now be presented at New York's Lincoln Center on April 4 and as part of Hamburg's Ostertöne on April 12.
Two films by Heinz Emigholz will be shown at the Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film in Graz: In Loos Ornamental and Schindler's Houses, the filmmaker presents buildings by Adolf Loos and Rudolph Schindler and explores their embedment in the cultural and social context of the here and now - in places like Los Angeles, Vienna, Brno, Prague, und Paris. The films are thus also a documentation of the fate of modern architecture. Bady Minck's Being and Nothingness, a film realised in collaboration with Klangforum Wien, will be presented at the Diagonale as well.
December 2008
We are happy to announce the publication of the book Im Anfang war der Blick – Ereignishorizont eines Films at Sonderzahl Verlag.
Manufactured in a melting furnace inbetween science and art, Bady Minck's film In the Beginning was the Eye continues its passionate journey in the shape of a book. Sustainability researcher Heidi Dumreicher and film author Olaf Möller have gathered fifteen writers who reframe and reiterate the questions posed by the film. What is landscape? A Garden of Eden, a data base, a cinematic backdrop? How does film respond to landscape, science to film, landscape to science? What is the role of time, velocity, animation, philosopy, and fine arts in this process?
"In the Beginning was the Eye is, with its 45 minutes of abundant avant-garde research, the figurehead of the Director's Fortnight in Cannes 2003. At times a dreamlike vision, at times political, philosophical and even culinary, the film is technically perfect. The stunning sound and visuals and the hypnotic editing ensure that you don't get bored for a second." (Martin Granica, Repérages, Paris)
Like the film, the book traverses the boundaries between ecology, science, art, and film, in the process reconnecting numerous facets which were articulated cinematographically by the film and discussed at the cinESCAPE symposium. Film, symposium, and book are the result of a long lasting and fruitful cooperation between Amour Fou Filmproduction Vienna, Minotaurus Film Luxembourg and research institute Oikodrom – Forum Nachhaltige Stadt. Interdisciplinary analyses, comments and essays as well as collages by the filmmaker give insight into the development, history, and background of In the Beginning was the Eye.
In terms of the interaction of science and art, the contributors of the book include scientists, film critics, filmmakers and poets: Heidi Dumreicher, Sergio Fant, Marcy Goldberg, Bodo Hell, Christoph Huber, Lilli Lička, Bady Minck, Johannes Moser, Michael O'Pray, Nicolas Rey, Hans Schifferle, Burghart Schmidt, Christian Stadelmann, Mika Taanila, Jean-Philippe Tessé und Barbara Wurm.
Heidi Dumreicher, Olaf Möller (ed.)
Im Anfang
war der Blick – Ereignishorizont eines Films
160 pages, black&white and colour, numorous illustrations
Abstracts in German and English for every essay
Format: 16,5 x 23 cm
€ 19,90
ISBN 978 3 85449 293 1
The film has been released on DVD
as well. Book & DVD are being distributed in Austria and internationally
via Sonderzahl Verlag,
Polyvideo, and Filmgalerie
451 - before christmas, with a special discount for both items: book
& DVD for just € 35. Furthermore, book & DVD are available
in Vienna at Filmcasino,
Phil, Secession,
Kunstforum
and Satyr
Filmwelt. And of course, you can order the book at the bookshop of
your choice.
October 2008
Following the international premiere at the Berlinale film festival, Loos Ornamental's Austrian premiere takes place this month at the Viennale. Part 13 of "Photography and Beyond", Heinz Emigholz's film is a cinematographic contemplation of architecture as autobiography. It presents 27 buildings by Austrian architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933) in the chronological order of their creation. Shot in Vienna, Lower Austria, Prague, Brno, Plzeň, Náchod, and Paris in 2006, the film shows all the buildings in their present state and is thus also a documentation of the fate of modern architecture.
Heinz Emigholz will personally introduce his film at these Viennale screenings
(Künstlerhaus
Kino):
Thursday, October 23, 2008, 4.30pm
Friday, October 24, 2008, 2.30pm
Loos Ornamental will be theatrically released in Austria on November 21 at Vienna's Top Kino. Furthermore, a matinee with Heinz Emigholz and Helmut Weihsmann takes place at Filmcasino on November 16, 11.30am.
Distribution in Austria: Poool Filmverleih
A retrospective with 5 films by Lisl Ponger will be presented on October 16 at 7pm in Vienna's Top Kino. The program was curated by Gerald Weber (sixpackfilm) and includes both early work and Ponger's latest film Imago Mundi, which was produced by Amour Fou. A Q&A with Lisl Ponger will take place after the screening.
Film – An Exercise in Illusion I 1980, 35mm blow-up from S8, 3
min, silent
Film – An Exercise in Illusion II 1983, 35mm blow-up from S8, 5
min, silent
Souvenirs 1982, 16mm blow-up from S8, 12 min, silent
déjà vu 1999, found-footage, 35mm blow-up from S8 &
N8, 23 min
Imago Mundi – challenging what is accepted 2007, Video, 37 min
The programm will be repeated on October 16 at 9pm as well as October 17 and 18 at 7pm.
March 2008
Congratulations to Stefan Ruzowitzki, Josef Aichholzer
and the whole team of
THE COUNTERFEITERS for their Oscar! We also thank Ruzo and Josef for the
clearness of their political statement!
We are pleased that Tilda Swinton, the voice-over from FACELESS, won
the
Oscar for Best supporting actress.
February 2008
We are happy to announce that at the BERLINALE 2008 the architecture film "Loos ornamental" by Heinz Emigholz and the avantgarde film “Seems to Be” by Bady Minck will be given their world premier during the Internationalen Forums des Jungen Films (International Forum of Young Cinema).
LOOS ORNAMENTAL
a film by Heinz Emigholz
Austria 2008 - 74 Minuten - 35mm - Dolby SRD
World distribution rights: Autlook Film Sales
made with the support of Filmfonds Wien, Innovative Film Austria, ORF
Film-/Fernsehabkommen,WDR / 3sat, Niederösterreich Kultur
Architecture as autobiography : the film presents twenty-seven buildings by the Austrian architect Adolf Loos (1870 - 1933) in the chronological order in which they were created..
What can be seen and experienced is the unfolding of Loos' conception of space, his understanding of material and the development of his almost modular way of building. Shot in Vienna, Lower Austria, Paris and the Czech Republic, the film shows all the buildings in their present state and is thus also a documentation of the fate of modern architecture.
Screenings at the Berlinale 2008:
Wednesday, 13th February 2008, 12.45p.m., CinemaxX5 (press preview)
Thursday, 14th February 2008, 10 a.m. Arsenal (Premiere)
Friday, 15th February, 3 p.m. CineStar 8
Sunday, 17th February 2008, 4.30 p.m. Delphi-Filmpalast
SEEMS TO BE
a film by Bady Minck
Luxembourg / Austria 2008 - 8 Minuten - 35mm - Dolby SRD
Music: Morton Feldman, interpreted by the Klangforum Wien
World distribution rights: Sixpack Film
made with the support of Filmfund Luxembourg, Innovative Film Austria,
ORF Film-/Fernsehabkommen, Stadt Wien Kultur
A meditation on the certainties of existence and the illusions of perception in space and time and a trompe l'oeil at the same time; Morton Feldman's de-dramatised music that has apparently fallen out of time is taken literally in the spatial dimension of the film: the sketch fixing the order of the ensemble that is shortly to perform Feldman's composition fills up with 'real' musicians who are caught in the two dimensionality of the paper only to be tipped into the spatiality of the Vienna Concert House. But what is real here, and what is fake? Seems to Be dances on this platform of ambivalence and confronts the metaphysics of the fixed existential basis of agnostic scepticism with an abandoned existence characterised by visual chimeras. Godless Feldman, merciless abyss. What we see looks at us. (Thomas Miessgang)
World premiere and screenings at the Berlinale 2008 as part of the Internationalen
Forums des Jungen Films (International Forum of Young Cinema):
Sunday, 10th February 2008, 3 p.m., Arsenal
Thursday, 14th February 2008, 4 p.m. Arsenal
We would be very happy to welcome you to one of the Berlinale 2008 screenings.