Underground and Emigrants

West Germany, 1976, 80 min., Color, German with Japanese subtitles

In this film, Rosa von Praunheim travels to New York, a city he regards as both a place of longing and an alternative to what he saw as the “sterile German cultural establishment.” He documents his encounters with artists and personalities from New York’s underground scene, who, in Off-Off-Broadway theaters, clubs, and private apartments are creating an uninhibited and highly vital culture often under precarious conditions, free from conventional taboos.
Among the film’s most prominent figures are William S. Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Fernando Arrabal, and Robert Wilson. The “emigrants” of the title are represented by German-speaking exiles and emigrant artists from the pre-war and wartime periods, including Greta Keller and Grete Mosheim, both living in New York. In this way, the film combines a portrait of the contemporary avant-garde scene with reflections on the experiences of German-speaking exile.

Director: Rosa von Praunheim
Screening courtesy: Underground Cinema Film Festival.

The screening is held with an introduction by film scholar Tetsuya Shibutani.

Tetsuya Shibutani
Born in 1965, he is a Professor in the College of Humanities and Sciences at Nihon University. His research specializes in German cinema and cultures of visual representation. He has published extensively on German film, with a particular focus on the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He has also translated Fassbinder’s plays "The Bremen Freedom" and "Garbage, the City and Death" into Japanese, and has created Japanese subtitles for a large number of German films.