Last year the Goethe-Institut organised the first UK retrospective of the documentaries of Peter Nestler.
As Peter was unable to attend the series, Maren Hobein invited him now for a short visit, which will provide the opportunity to re-discover some of his films and to further engage with them in a dialogue with the filmmaker. Please see details of the 5 screening events below!
Peter Nestler - Reprise Programme 1
Friday, 1 November 2013, 7pm
Goethe-Institut London
How to make Glass (manually) + Pachamama – Our Land
In the 1970s, Peter and Zsóka Nestler collaborated on a series of educational films for television on the history of crafts and the making of things. These “biographies of objects" are rigorous investigations into the history of working techniques, production processes and materials exploring the relation between economics, politics and history. One of the most compelling one in this series, How to Make Glas (Manually) depicts different processes of glass making.
Peter Nestler directed Pachamama after The North Calotte, his remarkable film about the preservation of the Sami indigenous culture and the damage brought to the landscape of Northern Europe by heavy industrialisation. As the previous film Pachamama is a travelogue, this time filmed in Ecuador, moving from the hills of Quito to the country’s mountains, fields and its coast. The film is constructed around a musical structure and motif and gently depicts the layering of history and cultures, presenting the current situation of the peasants and rural workers, their communal organisation and the hardships of their toil and struggle, as well as the transformation of the landscape through deforestation and land exploitation.
How to Make Glass (manually) (Wie macht man Glas? (handwerklich), Sweden 1970, b/w, 16mm, 24mins. Dir: Peter Nestler in collaboration with Zsóka Nestler.
Pachamama – Our Land (Pachamama - Nuestra Tierra), Germany 1995, colour, 16mm (transferred to Digibeta), 90mins. Dir: Peter Nestler. Total Running Time: 114 minutes. Followed by a Q & A with Peter Nestler
Peter Nestler - Reprise Programme 2
Ödenwaldstetten + Time
Saturday, 2 November, 3pm
Goethe-Institut London
Ödenwaldstetten describes the changes brought by industrialisation to a Swabian village in the 1960s, thus evoking the transformation the whole of Germany was undergoing at the time.
Filmed almost 30 years later, Time takes us to Hungary and introduces us to a number of Hungarian folk artists who, after years of adversity, share their life experiences and love for their craft with the filmmakers.
Ödenwaldstetten, FRG 1964, b/w, 16mm, 36mins. Dir: Peter Nestler in collaboration with Kurt Ulrich.
Time, Germany 1992, colour, 16mm, 43mins. Dir: Peter Nestler in collaboration with Zsóka Nestler.
Peter Nestler - Reprise Programme 3
From Greece + Chile Film
Saturday, 2 November, NEW!: 5.30pm
Goethe-Institut London
Just as urgent today as it was when it was made during the Greek crisis of 1965, From Greece looks back at anti-fascist struggle and resistance in the 1940s as a warning against the re-emergence of fascism.
Made for television and for a young audience, Chile Film is another excellent example of Nestler’s educational and political cinema. The film combines a montage of documents, ranging from spoken texts to photographs of Thomas Billhardt and Karl Erik Jagare, old photos, drawings from Chilean artists, with the music of Luis Roca and Ramon Chavez. In a clear and straightforward manner it explains the history of Chilean resistance and class struggle from the colonisation of the country up to the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government exactly 40 years ago. Like From Greece, the film, which clearly sides with the Unidad Popular, is a powerful plead against oppression. In the beginning of the film we listen to the sentence: "The Chilean people have had to endure much for hundreds of years." The film was never broadcasted.
From Greece, FRG 1965. b/w, 16mm, 28mins. Dir: Peter Nestler in collaboration with Reinald Schnell.
Chile Film, Sweden 1973 /74, b/w, 16mm, 23mins. Dir. Peter Nestler in collaboration with Zsóka Nestler
Peter Nestler - Reprise Programme 4
Up the Danube + Die Judengasse
Saturday, 2 November, NEW!: 7.30pm
Goethe-Institut London
Made twenty years apart, these two films are essential to understand the core of Peter Nestler's cinematographic practice and concerns. Up the Danube follows a riverboat upstream, excavating the river’s layers of history from Roman times to the present.
Discussions about the conservation of Die Judengasse (Jew’s Alley) in Frankfurt motivated Peter Nestler to reconstruct the history of the Jews in this city. It is a history of centuries of persecution and exclusion, interrupted only by a few periods in which emancipation seemed possible. As in his other films, Nestler uses different kinds of documentary material to establish the relationship between past and present.
Die Donau Rauf (Up the Danube), FRG 1969, 16mm, colour, 28mins. Dir: Peter Nestler in collaboration with Zsóka Nestler.
The Jewish Lane (Die Judengasse), Germany 1988, colour, 16mm, 44 mins. Dir: Peter Nestler.
Peter Nestler - Reprise Programme 5
By the Dike Sluice + A Working Men’s Club in Sheffield
Sunday, 3 November, 3pm.
Showroom & Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX
Peter Nestler’s first film, By the Dike Sluice, presents life in a small seaside village, unusually described from the perspective of an old floodgate.
Highlighting the musicality of much of his work, A Working Men's Club in Sheffield is Nestler’s paean to the working class, depicting the hard work and leisure time of those gathering at the Dial House Working Men's Club.
By the Dike Sluice (Am Siel), FRG 1962, 35mm, b/w, 13 min, Dir: Peter Nestler in collaboration with Kurz Ulrich.
A Working Men’s Club in Sheffield (Ein Arbeiterclub in Sheffield), FRG 1965, 16mm (DigiBeta), b/w, 41mins. Dir: Peter Nestler.
Tickets: £3 individual programme at the Goethe-Institut, £6 for all 3 programmes on Saturday, £9 all 4 screenings at the Goethe-Institut. Free for Goethe-Institut Language Students and Library Members. Booking Essential.
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We warmly recommend you this opportunity!
Susanne Hammacher
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