Film Screenings
Goethe films: Schlingensief: Approach those you fear

Thu, 05/10/2018 -
Thu, 05/17/2018
6:30 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox Toronto

Series co-presented with the Laser Blast Film Society & KinoVortex

Iconoclast, enfant terrible, agent provocateur. While many would call German filmmaker-performer-activist Christoph Schlingensief (1960-2010) fearless, he himself said shortly before his untimely death that to make good work, “I have to approach those I fear”. GOETHE FILMS features core Schlingensief projects that tackle the ghosts of Europe's past, present and future – fascism, capitalism, division and reunification – in his signature no-holds-barred splatter style.       


10 May 2018, 6:30 PM
THE 120 DAYS OF BOTTROP (Germany 1997, 60 min) directed by Christoph Schlingensief and Oskar Roehler (screenplay), starring Margit Carstensen, Irm Hermann, Volker Spengler, Udo Kier, Sophie Rois, Martin Wuttke, with music by Helge Schneider.
An eccentric homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, declaring the end of New German Cinema.
Introduced by Bruce LaBruce.

15 May 2018, 6:30 PM
FOREIGNERS OUT! SCHLINGENSIEF'S CONTAINER (Austria 2002, 90 min) documentary directed by Paul Poet, with Christoph Schlingensief, Luc Bondy, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Einstürzende Neubauten, Elfriede Jelinek, Peter Sellars, Peter Sloterdijk, on Schlingensief’s famous anti-fascist intervention in Vienna

17 May 2018, 6:30 PM
GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE FIRST HOUR OF REUNIFICATION (Germany 1990, 63 min) directed by Christoph Schlingensief, starring Irm Hermann, Udo Kier (assistant director), production design by Uli Hanisch (The International, Perfume).
Schlingensief’s breakthrough cult film exposing the free market as (literally) a meat market.
+
THE HOLDING OF SKULLS IS NOT MY THING! (Germany 2001, 45 min) directed by Alexander Kluge. Cultural theorist A. Kluge in a phone conversation with C. Schlingensief against the backdrop of a controversial Hamlet production in Zurich, in which Schlingensief played Fortinbras and caused a sensation by casting breakaway right-wing extremists.
 
Restored and digitized original versions. Viewer discretion advised.
 
From killing his darlings (Fassbinder) to engaging with the enemy (Nazis), Schlingensief referenced European cultural history and its cinema canon (Pasolini, Riefenstahl, Emmerich ...) in wild and daring works, directing Wagner in Bayreuth and at Teatro Amazonas, getting himself arrested at an art action at documenta, and working with some of the best artists, like frequent collaborators Udo Kier and Irm Hermann.
 
“Herr Schlingensief, do you need a psychiatrist?” – BILD German tabloid newspaper
 
Christoph Schlingensief worked feverishly across opera, installation, theatre, film, political activism, radio play, TV, and writing; immersing himself and his open-mouthed audiences in horror, trash, satire, and the experimental, being honoured for it at ICA London, the Venice Biennial (winning the Golden Lion posthumously), MoMA PS1, Centre Pompidou and other prestigious institutions, Christoph Schlingensief was an ogre as well as an oracle of things to come, from new media movements to right-wing resurgence.
 
Born in 1960 in West Germany, Schlingensief made his first 8mm film at the age of eight. Since then he created more than 20 films, many with the support of the Goethe-Institut. After learning he had lung cancer in 2008, Schlingensief wrote about his illness and published his diary. He died in 2010. His legacy is the Opera Village Africa, an international art and educational project in Burkina Faso, which he realized together with award-winning Berlin architect Francis Kéré.
 
The program title "Approach those you fear" references a quote by Christoph Schlingensief in a 3sat TV video interview 2008.


All GOETHE FILMS are open to audience 18+

Part of the Goethe Institut's focus on German film