TATJANA TURANSKYJ: ADRIFT OR ON TOP
German feminist cinema with an anti-naturalist twist 

The Goethe-Institut London in collaboration with the Feminist Research Centre, Goldsmiths, University of London, presents two films by Berlin-based director Tatjana Turanskyj on 2 and 3 December 2014. To celebrate these UK premieres the director will be present and after the screenings there will be brief discussions and Q & A’s.  

Helke Sander’s seminal film The All-Round Reduced Personality (1977), included in the British Museum’s German film series to accompany the exhibition Germany Memory of a Nation (screens: Sun, 23 Nov, 2pm), follows a photographer and single mother trying to juggle her life in the then still divided Berlin. More than 30 years later, Berlin-based filmmaker Tatjana Turanskyj takes a fresh perspective on women’s working lives in 21st century Berlin. In her two remarkable films The Drifter (Eine Flexible Frau, 2010) and Top Girl or La Déformation professionelle she reinvents German feminist narrative cinema with an anti-naturalist twist. 


TATJANA TURANSKYJ: EINE FLEXIBLE FRAU / THE DRIFTER
Tuesday 2 December 2014, 7pm
40-year-old Greta, mother of a 12-year-old son, separated from her husband, is an under-employed architect in Berlin. She deals with her work anxieties by drinking too much and after starting and soon losing a job in a call centre, she begins to drift through the ‘New’ Berlin invaded by neo-liberalist building projects, gated communities and unbridled gentrification. Using a loose episodic structure and anti-naturalist performances, the film is a witty, yet also angry portrait of a woman confused by her seemingly ‘post-feminist’ freedoms which co-exist alongside the new constraints of ‘precarious work’.  

Germany 2010, colour, 97 mins. With English subtitles. Directed by Tatjana Turanskyj. With Mira Partecke, Katharina Bellena, Laura Tonke, Ilia Papatheodorou, Michaela Benn. 

Followed by a discussion between Tatjana Turanskyj and Angela McRobbie, Professor of Communication, Goldsmiths, University of London
http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en13505866v.htm



TATJANA TURANSKYJ: TOP GIRL
Wednesday 3 December 2014, 7pm
Helena, 29, a single mother with an 11-year-old daughter, is an actress who earns her living as an escort in the sex industry. While she has to dress up in latex and leather, her mother, a singing teacher, thinks of romance and plastic surgery. Frustrated with her job, Helena seizes the opportunity to get to the top by staging the ultimate sexual power game.

Germany 2014, colour, 94 mins. With English subtitles.
Directed by Tatjana Turanskyj. With Julia Hummer, Susanne Bredehöft, RP Kahl, Thorsten Heidel.

Followed by a discussion between Tatjana Turanskyj and Mandy Merck, Professor of Media Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London. 
http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en13506176v.htm



About Tatjana Turanskyj

TATJANA TURANSKYJ has been a film maker and a performance artist since 2001, the year she co-founded the Berlin women’s film collective hangover ltd.*., of which she was a member until 2007 and in all of whose films she performed and acted as co-writer and co-director.  The collective’s film Remake (2004) won the 1st Prize at the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen in 2005. Since 2008 Tatjana Turanskyj has been a joint partner in the production company turanskyj & ahlrichs***, which produced her acclaimed and award winning film Eine Flexible Frau (The Drifter, 2010) as their first project. Her second film with turanskyj & ahlrichs***, Top Girl (2013) had its world premiere at the International Forum  of Young Film at the 64th Berlin Film Festival in 2014. She is based in Berlin and is currently working on the Film Athens - Disorientation is no crime, which she produces and direct together with documentary film maker Marita Neher. The film is in post-production.
http://turanskyj-ahlrichs.com/


VENUE AND BOOKING:

Goethe-Institut London, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PH
Tickets: £3, free for Goethe-Institut language students and library members, booking essential.
Booking: +44 20 75964000
www.goethe.de/london,  www.facebook.com/goethe.institut.london,  @gi_london



Helke Sander: The All-Round Reduced Personality 
Sunday 23 November, 2pm 
Introduced by Professor Erica Carter, King's College, University of London

British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG
Tickets: £3, members and concessions £2
Booking: www.britishmuseum.org & 020 7323 8181 
https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/event_detail.aspx?eventId=1834&title=Division:%20The%20All-Round%20Reduced%20Personality:%20REDUPERS&eventType=Film