Short & Sweet 1

GOETHE-INSTITUT AND MOVING IMAGE CENTRE PRESENT
SHORT & SWEET 1-
short films from Germany
(1999)

AUCKLAND:
KODAK THEATRETTE
27 NAPIER ST, THE PRODUCTION VILLAGE
FREEMANS BAY
7PM 12,13 & 14th APRIL
ENTRY: $5

- Screenings in other regions soon to be confirmed, stay tuned!

This collection of short films has as its main principle the desire to entertain
the audience in an intelligent
way. As a whole this film programme offers a cross-section of German short films
and reflects the mood of the Germans in the latter part of the 1990s.

POLITICS?POLITICS! (politics)

AUCKLAND:Kodak Theatrette 7pm 12th April

These political films are more like philosophical essays, examining Germany’s
Nazi past, denouncing
hostility toward foreigners and portraying case studies at the scenes of conflict
taking place in our time.

HEAL HITLER!
1996, 16mm, colour & b/w, 14′31 min
Director: Thomas Frickel
A clenched fist at the end of an outstretched arm- the symbol of the “Iron
Front”. In the months prior to
Hitler’s seizure of power the mass movement dominated by social democrats used
funny political
happenings and massive demonstrations to put fear into the hearts of the Nazi
Party and its followers.

…ON SONS
1996, 16mm, b/w, 11′00 min
Director: Anthony Lew Shun
Somewhere during the war. A father and son run out of petrol. While the father
makes his way to the
nearest petrol station, the weapon in the hands of his son becomes a deadly
threat.

LIVING ON THE EDGE
1995,16mm, colour & b/w, 11′00 min
Director: Luke McBain
What do golf courses have to do with street vendors? Is there a conspiracy to
stimulate people to buy
things? Does a new way of living exist, and if so, will the people there eat hot
dogs? Dave, the hero, thinks so.

FOR TRAINING PURPOSES ONLY
1997/98, 16mm, b/w, 18′30 min
Production: Hanna Nordholt, Fritz Steingrobe
Inspired by Paul Virilio’s essay “War and Cinema” the film uses the
interpretation of lizard images as an example to describe the parallel development of the film industry and military technology.

THE STREAM
1994, 35mm, b/w, 8′27 min
Director: Garry Lane
A woman who together with her three children and her mother-in-law flees from a
area where fighting is fierce has to decide between saving the lives of her children or that of the old woman.

A FOREIGN HOME
1996, 35mm, b/w, 13′00 min
Director: Damir Lukacevic
A bus of refugees is stopped by soldiers. They search the passengers- women,
children, old men- and take away a young woman. The villagers observe the frightening scene with indifference. The teacher is the only one who tries to show some solidarity with the young woman.

HAMMER & SICKLE
1996, 35mm, colour, 3′30 min
Director: Franz Winzentsen
The development of a national symbol until it ends up as a museum piece proves to
be a mirror of the history of the nation.

POTSDAMER PLATZ-REMIX
1997, 35mm, b/w, 9′30 min
Director: Uli M.
Berlin: Europe’s biggest inner-city construction site depicted as a reawakening
body, accompanied by the expressionistic text by Paul Zech “Terrasse am Pol” (”Terrace at the Pole”) in the background.

IRONY OF FATE (comedy)

AUCKLAND:Kodak Theatrette 7pm 13th April

The Germans’ dearest pleasure appears to be black humour. In these films people
laugh about their own fate, which has just pulled a fast one on them again.

PLAYBOYS
1997, 35mm, colour, 11′00 min
Director: Pepe Danquart
Have you ever asked yourself how a good movie begins? Playboys- a parody of the big Hollywood cinema.

CLINIC OF HORROR
1992, 35mm, b/w, 15′24 min
Director: Rainer Matsutani
A small time gangster, confined to his bed because of several broken bones,
fights for survival in a hospital plagued by a series of murders. Clinic of Horror is a thriller full of black humour and at the same time it is a homage to the horror B-movies of the 50s.

FAKE!
1996/97, 35mm, colour & b/w, 12′00 min
Director: Sebastian Peterson
Fa’s sexual life is not satisfying, and so she tries to start up a relationship
with Jim, a extremely good-looking fellow. After a romantic night with him, she discovers that he’s a gangster. And, from then on it’s all about explosives, mysterious eggs and gold teeth…

CHAINSMOKER
1997, 35mm, colour, 10′45 min
Director: Maria von Heland
A rainy night in Berlin. The desire to have a cigarette sets off a chain of
unjusual coincidences.

PAS DE DEUX
1997, 35mm, colour, 15′00min
Director: Matthias Lehmann
What do you do on an evening when Richard ‘Corkleg’ is not on, the woman at the
night desk likes sweaters and the only colleague in the transport room is Heinz?

A SIMPLE MISSION
1996, 35mm, colour, 10′50 min
Director: Raymond Boy
The fairy Marie, who has been successfully fulfilling wishes for many years, is
now to visit Jacob Brumme, a bricklayer who lives alone in his dilapidated cabin, and grant hime three wishes. A simple mission, or so i t seems.

WHAT DOESN’T FIT IS MADE TO FIT
1996,35mm, colour, 15′00 min
Director: Peter Thorwarth
An illegally employed Polish worker falls from a scaffold on a construction site
in the region of the Ruhr Valley. Everyone agrees to keep quiet about the accident, everyone except the student trainee.

TRICKY GERMANY (animation)

AUCKLAND:Kodak Theatrette 7pm 14th April

In the case of animated films the German film scene can absolutely compete with
the best. These range from animated cartoons, puppet animation and animated painting to animation directly painted or scratched on the film in the best tradition of Len Lye and Norman McLaren.

PERE UBU
1997, 35mm, colour, 14′27 min
Director: Heinrich Sabl
In 1895 Alfred Jarry staged his legendary play Ubu Roi in Paris. The production
was both a success and a scandal and became a pioneer work of the theatre of the absurd. Mother and Father Ubu are two modern people, who will do anything to rise to power. With the help of Captain Schratzensaum they kill the king of Poland…

ROOTS
1996, 35mm, colour, 3′41 min
Director: Barbel Neubauer
Metamorphoses of colour and form, which are drawn, painted and stamped directly
on film leader. The film’s main symbols are suns and representations of the sun, which are suspended in a dialogue with rhythm and music.

BASE OF REALITY
1998, 35mm, colour, 5′22 min
Director: Olaf Bohme
Two men encounter each other, but their paths cannot cross. Which of the two is
on the right path? Being right at all costs?

THE CREATION
1994, 35mm, b/w, 7′00 min
Director: Thomas Meyer-Hermann
This film shows us the beginning of the world in a playful succession of
associations, in which the parallels to the act of artistic creation are emphasised.

QUEST
1996, 35mm, colour, 11′33 min
Director: Tyron Montgomery
In search of water, a sand figure leaves the sand world where it lives. It
wanders through other worlds, those of paper, stone and iron, always following the drops of water.

KILLING HEINZ
1996, 16mm, colour, 3′20 min
Director: Stefan Eling
Heinz is a lucky devil, right? He’s doing fine, and life is treating him great.
So actually everything is OK.
But is life really just like a smooth, flowing river?

LATE AT NIGHT
1997, 35mm, colour, 4′20 min
Director: Stefanie Jordan
A person wanders through the city at night… An animated film to the music done
by the American jazz singer Cassandra Wilson, as a picturesque, atmospheric and compact sequence of images expressing a feeling.

FEEDING TIME
1996, 35mm, colour, 4′30 min
Director: Carsten Strauch
The lion Stefan Krause is hungry, but life in the zoo is not easy, and in an
emergency true friends are rare.

THE WIND SUBSIDES
1996, 35mm, colour, 4′25 min
Director: Vuk Jevremovic
Images and music. The eternal transition of one form to another. Disappearance
and appearance.

WE LIVED IN THE GRASS
1995, 35mm, colour, 17′30 min
Director: Andreas Hykade
I don’t want to get cancer of the testicles, and I don’t want to shoot a tiger,
either. I’d like to fly with the dandelion girl. Do you know what, Dad, maybe you’ll just fly with me.

RUBICON
1997, 35mm, colour, 6′54 min
Director: Gil Alkabetz
The film to solve the classic riddle: A wolf, a sheep and a cauliflower are to be
brought to the other side of the river. How can they reach the other side without the sheep eating the cauliflower or the wolf eating the sheep?

SPRING
1996, 35mm, colour, 4′10 min
Director: Silke Parzich
A thousand dancing folks, twelve wiggling chairs and a table celebrate the
beginning of spring.