Film Screenings: Germany - Memories of a Nation
Sunday 9 November 2014- Sunday 30 November 2014, British Museum,
In connection with its exhibition Germany - Memories of a Nation, the British Museum shows four films exploring different aspects of German cultural identity. Starting with F.W. Murnau’s Faust, a highlight of Weimar cinema, the series continues with the first feature film produced in Germany after World War II, Wolfgang Staudte’s The Murderers Are Among Us and with Helke Sander’s seminal feminist film The All-Round Reduced Personality: Redupers set in the divided Berlin of the 1970s. The series closes with Fatih Akin’s powerful Head-On, which addresses generational conflicts and questions of cultural belonging within contemporary Germany’s large Turkish-German community. All screening will be introduced by members of the German Screen Studies Network.
In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut London and the German Screen Studies Network
http://germanscreenstudies.co.uk/events
http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/enindex.htm
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Programme:
Germany in the Shadows: Faust
Sunday 9 November 2014, 2pm - 4pm
Faust was Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s last Film in Germany before he went to Hollywood. A late masterpiece of Expressionism, it is a showcase for the striking visual effects of Weimar cinema in its heyday. In his potent cinematic version of this German folk legend, Murnau draws not least on Goethe’s epic poem. The rise and fall of a man drawn into a pact with the devil in his overreaching pursuit of knowledge and power suggests an allegory of modern humanity, and perhaps of modern Germany in particular.
Germany 1946. 85 mins. Silent with English subtitles for the intertitles. Cert. PG. Director: F. W. Murnau. With Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn & Gösta Ekman.
Introduced by Professor Andrew Webber, University of Cambridge.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/event_detail.aspx?eventId=1823&title=Germany%20in%20shadows:%20Faust&eventType=Film
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Guilt and Ruin: The Murderers are among us (Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns)
Sunday 16 November 2014, 2pm - 5pm
Wolfgang Staudte’s film is a realistic portrayal of a German man and woman learning to live and love again among a desolate landscape of flattened buildings and spiritual emptiness. The first film to be made in Germany after the Second World War, it is worth seeing for the footage of Berlin ruins alone. But it is also a brave and nuanced exploration of German guilt, released only two weeks after the Nuremberg trials indicted senior Nazis for crimes committed in their names.
Germany, 1946. 85 mins. With English subtitles. Cert. PG.
Director: Wolfgang Staudte. With Hildegard Knef & Elly Burgmer.
Introduced by Lara Feigel, King’s College London.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/event_detail.aspx?eventId=1745&title=Guilt%20and%20ruin:%20The%20Murderers%20are%20Among%20Us&eventType=Film
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The All-Round Reduced Personality: Redupers (Die Allseitig Reduzierte Persönlichkeit – Redupers)
The first full-length feature by feminist activist and documentarist Helke Sander, Redupers takes the temperature of West German sexual and social politics ten years on from the student revolts of 1968. Set in divided Berlin, the film uses the form of the film essay to reflect on parallels between the fractured life of its single mother and photographer protagonist Edda, and the traumatic divide that separates the city’s east and west.
West Germany 1977, b/w, 98mins. With English subtitles. Cert 15. Director: Helke Sander. With Helke Sander, Joachim Baumann, Frank Burckner & Eva Gagel.
Introduced by Erica Carter, Professor of Germanand Film at King’s College London.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/event_detail.aspx?eventId=1834&title=Division:%20The%20All-Round%20Reduced%20Personality:%20REDUPERS&eventType=Film
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Head-On (Gegen die Wand)
Sunday 30 November 2014, 2pm - 4.30pm
This uncompromising tale of unlikely love between two second generation Turkish families in Hamburg sees Cahit enter into a marriage of convenience with Sibel, after they have met through their shared desire to commit suicide. Cahit’s subsequent imprisonment and Sibel’s flight to Istanbul probes ideas of belonging and identity. For his powerful tale of loss and love Fatih Akin was awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlinale and the European Film Prize.
Germany, 2004. 121 mins. With English subtitles. Cert. 18. Director: Fatih Akin. With Birol Ünel & Sibel Kekilli
Introduced by Professor Daniela Berghahn, Royal Holloway, University of London.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/event_detail.aspx?eventId=1839&title=Head-On&eventType=Film
VENUE AND TICKETS
British Museum, Great Russel Street, London WC1B 3DG
Tickets: £3, members and concessions £2
Booking: www.britishmuseum.org & 020 7323 8181
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