This first part of Chamisso‘s Shadow takes us from Alaska to and across the Aleutian Islands, which form a chain of larger and smaller islands extending from Alaska along the southern limits of the Bering Sea to the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The screening will be introducted by the film cuator and lecturer Helen de Witt.
This section is interspersed with passages from Peter Schlemihls Miraculous Story (1813). In this novella by the poet and naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso (1781 – 1838), the protagonist, having sold his soul to the devil and being shunned by his fellow men as a result, travels the world in seven-league boots and devotes himself to the study of nature. Chamisso himself was appointed as botanist to the three-year long ‘Rurik Expedition’ to the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, which Chamisso documented in several publications of varying formats and styles.
Germany 2016, colour, 193 mins., DCP, With English subtitles. Screenplay, Direction and Camera: Ulrike Ottinger.
Helen de Witt is an independent lecturer and curator. She teaches at Birkbeck University of London, University of the Arts London, and the National Film and Television School. She is programme advisor for the BFI London Film Festival Experimenta section for international artists’ moving image. Previously Helen was Head of Cinemas at the BFI, and prior to that Festivals Producer for the BFI London Film Festival and BFI Flare. Helen is also a director of The Service Co-op, an independent production company dedicated to making films about social justice, the arts and creative collaborations. She has published on independent cinema and artists’ film.
This screening has been organised by the Birkbeck Institute for the Moving (
BIMI), the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (
CREAM), the Goethe-Institut und
LUX. With support from the
Open City Documentary Film Festival and in association with the
German Screen Studies Network.
Back
