Werner Schroeter

Mona Lisa

Werner Schroeter

"My camera was silent, and so I started to compose wild sound collages for my films from my records with the help of tape, for example with my favorite Callas arias. I even got her to sing with herself that way. I also contrasted Schlager scraps of the Caterina Valente, whom I adore, and Christmas carols with the pictures. I cannot interpret what began then. I am an artist, I work intuitively." - Werner Schroeter

Der lachende Stern

Werner Schroeter

One of the most caustic and personal essay films ever made, Werner Schroeter's account of the 1983 Manila Film Festival, presided over by Imelda Marcos, chronicles the legacy of American and Spanish imperialism as it presents a "kaleidoscope of a ravaged country."

Welt am Draht

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Klaus Löwitsch, Barbara Valentin

Институт кибернетики создал революционный суперкомпьютер — Симулакрон, с помощью которого можно моделировать целые миры и населять их искусственными людьми. Изначально Симулакрон должен был использоваться в благих общественных целях, но глава Института Сискинс начинает осуществлять свои корыстные планы. Помешать Сискинсу, а также разгадать ряд тайн и загадок вокруг суперкомпьютера должен гений компьютерных технологии Фред Штиллер…

Carla

Werner Schroeter

Carla Egerer, Rosa von Praunheim

Carla is a different form of homage, in which Carla Aulaulu sings a song by Gitta Linds.

Daniel Schmid - Le chat qui pense

Pascal Hofmann, Benny Jaberg

Daniel Schmid, Ingrid Caven

When director Daniel Schmid grew up, his parents ran a hotel in the Alps, and this singular setting was to influence his film. Rather by coincidence he came to Berlin in the early 1960s and became part of the new German wave. Schmid worked with, among others, Wenders and Fassbinder, for example as an actor in Wender’s The American Friend. He met Ingrid Caven, who was to play a diva in several of his films. This is a documentation of a part of modern European film history and a good analysis of artistry and how it corresponds to the individual behind the camera. A wealth of archival footage brings us close to many directors and actors in Schmid’s circle. If you’ve never seen a Daniel Schmid film, you are sure to want to after watching this portrait of his life.

Johannas Traum

Werner Schroeter

Magdalena Montezuma, Candy Darling

With the ascetic grandeur of Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Schroeter evokes the visions of Saint Joan, partly through unused footage of Darling and Caven pantomiming in his 1972 film The Death of Maria Malibran. - MoMA

Abfallprodukte der Liebe

Werner Schroeter

Isabelle Huppert, Carole Bouquet

German director Werner Schroeter invited his favourite opera singers to a 13th century abbey near Paris. There was no pre-planned action. There was no script, no continuity. On the other hand, there were precise constraints that provided the rules of the game: the setting, the Abbey of Royaumont, and the chosen participants. Each singer came accompanied by a person of his or her choice, and worked on an aria chosen by the director.

De l'Argentine

Werner Schroeter

Ronnie Arias, Norma Aleandro

Documentary on State terrorism during the last military dictatorship in Argentina, made in its aftermath. Invited by the Goethe-Institut to hold a workshop with young film students, Schroeter contrasts the official statements of the regime with the testimony of victims, dissidents and relatives of the disappeared. And trust that their faces and words will resonate much more than a mere representation of violence.

Goldflocken

Werner Schroeter

Magdalena Montezuma, Ila von Hasperg

Werner Schroeter's rhapsody of excess leaps from 1949 Cuba to contemporary France to points in between, while its feverishly shifting visual style evokes and parodies everything from kitschy Mexican telenovelas to silent French art films.

La morte d'Isotta

Werner Schroeter

Joachim Bauer, Rita Bauer

La morte d’Isotta is a passionate melodrama inspired by Richard Wagner and Comte de Lautréamont, with Schroeter appearing in a principal role.

Salome

Werner Schroeter

Mascha Rabben, Magdalena Montezuma

Schroeter's virtuosic staging of the Oscar Wilde tragedy is a complex montage of image and sound, filmed on the grand steps of Baalbeck, the ancient Roman temple in Lebanon, and interweaving Lebanese and German folk songs with the music of Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Mozart, Bellini, and Donizetti. Elfi Mikesch, the cinematographer of Schroeter’s later films, designed the film’s sumptuous costumes. A contemporary critic for Le Monde wrote admiringly of Schroeter’s depiction of "the deadly struggle between dark Christian morality and luminous paganism.“

Die Generalprobe

Werner Schroeter

Pina Bausch, Reinhold Hoffmann

An exhilarating, essayistic documentary about the 1980 festival of experimental theatre in the French city of Nancy. Werner Schroeter's favourite of his own films.

Mondo Lux - Die Bilderwelten des Werner Schroeter

Elfi Mikesch

Werner Schroeter, Rosa von Praunheim

Werner Schroeter was one of the most significant proponents of New German Cinema. Schroeter was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. In her film, Elfi Mikesch, who photographed a number of Schroeter’s films and who collaborated closely with him to create his vision, provides us with an intimate insight into Schroeter’s artistic output during the remaining four years of his life.

Les Ministères de l'art

Philippe Garrel

Chantal Akerman, Juliet Berto

Philippe Garrel’s documentary on France’s second wave of masterful filmmakers. Featuring Jean Eustache, Chantal Akerman, André Téchiné, Leos Carax, Jacques Doillon and Benoit Jacquot.

Paula - "Je reviens"

Werner Schroeter

Heidi Lorenzo, Rita Bauer

Paula–’je reviens’ is one of Schroeter’s first experiments in choreography, as he stages actors in an empty room.

Callas Walking Lucia

Werner Schroeter

In the first part of this short film, Schroeter tries to visualize the artist as Lucia in the mad scene of the third act of the Donizetti opera. Schroeter uses four scene photos of Callas, isolated on a dark background, in gestures and facial expressions, highlights of the mad scene and cuts them one after the other in such a way that the impression of movement - of walking - arises. This anticipated movement becomes an ornament as the photos are dragged from right to left. The unnatural effect could be an accurate expression of madness. In the second part of the film, Schroeter uses three more shots of the singer: a private photo of Callas as Norma and a picture in a magazine that probably shows her in an exuberant pose as Medea (Cherubini) and nicknamed her “the tigress” in the press. The film has such a musical rhythm in its editing technique that the sound could be dispensed with.