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PHILIP SCHEFFNER & 'NATURECULTURES': THE POLITICS OF WILDLIFE TUE 3 DEC – FRI 6 DEC 2013, GOETHE-INSTITUT LONDON From 3 – 6 December the Goethe-Institut London will present two related documentary film programmes: Philip Scheffner (3 + 4 Dec) focuses on the work of the Berlin-based director and his award-winning films The Halfmoon Files (2007) and Revision (2012). The second two-part programme ‘Naturecultures’: The Politics of Wildlife (5 – 6 Dec), organised in collaboration with Queen Mary, University of London, and the University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury, includes a third film by Scheffner, The Day of the Sparrow (2010), and closes with a special event around the film Peak (2011) by Hannes Lang. A screening of the film will be preceded by talks by Dr Helen Hughes, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Surrey, and Dr Kathryn Yusoff, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Queen Mary, University of London. Following the screening there will be a discussion and a drinks reception for the book launch of Screening Nature: Cinema Beyond the Human, edited by Anat Pick and Guinevere Narraway (Berghahn, 2013). MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE FILMS, SCHEDULE, TICKETS PHILIP SCHEFFNER TUE 3 DEC - WED 4 DEC 2013 In the three documentaries he has made since 2007, Philip Scheffner, has established a concept and style of film-making that combine an investigatory purpose with a meandering, yet exacting approach. Newly recorded footage, voices, and sounds as well as archival material inconspicuously find their way together to encircle the object of his politically informed enquiries. In the process, hidden structures are revealed and the historiography of past events is questioned. Philip Scheffner and Merle Kröger, co-founder (with Philip Scheffner) of the Berlin production platform ‘pong’, will be present. http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en11718829v.htm PHILIP SCHEFFNER: THE HALFMOON FILES TUE 3 DEC 2013, 7PM "There once was a man. This man came into the European war. Germany captured this man. He wishes to return to India. If God has mercy, he will make peace soon. This man will go away from here." These are the words that Mall Singh spoke into the phonographic funnel on 11th December 1916 in the city of Wünsdorf, near Berlin. 90 years later, Mall Singh is a number on an old Shellac record in an archive - one amongst hundreds of voices of colonial soldiers of the First World War. The recordings were produced as the result of a unique alliance between the military, the scientific community and the entertainment industry. In his experimental search The Halfmoon Files, Philip Scheffner follows the traces of these voices to the origin of their recording, uncovering pictures and sounds that revive the ghosts of the past. Mall Singh and the other prisoners of war of the Halfmoon Camp disappeared from the official story of the war written by those who pressed the record button on the phonographs, on photo and film cameras. But their spirits and ghostly appearances seem to play with the filmmaker, to ambush him. They pursue him on his path to bring their voices back to their home countries. Germany 2007, colour, 87mins, with English subtitles. Dir: Philip Scheffner. Followed by a Q & A with Philip Scheffner and Merle Kröger. http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en11718978v.htm +++++++++++++++++++++ PHILIP SCHEFFNER: REVISION WED 4 DEC 2013, 7PM The summer of 1992, two people were shot down in a field close to the German-Polish border. Grigore Velcu and Eudache Calderar came from Romania. The circumstances surrounding their deaths remain unclear. One story was that hunters mistook the two men for wild boars in the darkness. The court case that ensued carried on for years, but many crucial questions were never asked and leads were not followed up; the accused were acquitted. Just under 20 years later, Philip Scheffner subjects the case to a cinematic revision. He conducts research by interviewing family members and acquaintances of the deceased in Romania and witnesses in Germany, and examines the crime scene. In doing so, he brings belated but new information to light. In the end, this casts a lot of doubt on the official story, and yet many contradictions remain unresolved. Award of Excellence (shared), International Competition of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2013. Germany 2012, colour, 106mins, with English subtitles. Dir.: Philip Scheffner Followed by a Q & A with Philip Scheffner and co-author / producer Merle Kröger. http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en11718998v.htm ******************************************************************************************** 'NATURECULTURES': THE POLITICS OF WILDLIFE THU 5 DEC 2013 - FRI 6 DEC, GOETHE-INSTITUT LONDON The second series of events by the Screening Nature Network explores the connections be-tween natural and social history with screenings of two award-winning docu-mentaries: Philip Scheffner's The Day of the Sparrow, and Hannes Lang’s Peak. The Screening Nature Network is an AHRC-funded project that explores the relationship between film, nature, human and nonhuman animals. Screening Nature asks ethical, political, and formal questions about the stakes of filming the world, from the content of images, to the animal ingredients of the film stock itself. It pushes the boundaries of what counts as ‘natural history’. The network was launched in May 2013, with a symposium and a series of screenings organised as collaboration between Queen Mary, University of London, the University for the Creative Arts, the Whitechapel Gallery, and Goethe-Institut, London. http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en11719111v.htm +++++++++++++++++++++ 'NATURECULTURES': THE POLITICS OF WILDLIFE PHILIP SCHEFFNER: THE DAY OF THE SPARROW THU 5 DEC 2013, 7PM This political wildlife film explores the proximities of bird and military habitats in the German countryside during the war in Afghanistan. The parallel lives and deaths of humans and birds furnish Scheffner’s meditation on the new global landscape of war. On November 14th, 2005 a sparrow is shot dead in Leeuwarden, and in Kabul a German soldier dies. With these competing headlines as a starting point director Philip Scheffner sets out to look for the traces of the war using the methods of an ornithologist. On his journey through Germany, the camera circuits the reality of the war by capturing images of apparent peace. Fragments of dialogue from chance encounters can be heard as we the camera lingers on deserted landscapes. Birds of all kinds remain in focus: they sit in the muzzle of a canon, on fences, fly across fields and meadows and guide us to the sites where the war is being produced. Winner of the 2011 German Documentary Prize. The Day of the Sparrow (Der Tag des Spatzen). Germany 2010, 100 mins., colour, with English subtitles. Dir: Philip Scheffner. Trailer: http://dertagdesspatzen.de/en/3/trailer The screening will be followed by a discussion with director Philip Scheffner, co-author and producer Merle Kröger, and Dr Nicole Wolf, Lecturer in Visual Culture, Goldsmiths, University of London. http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en11724582v.htm +++++++++++++++++++++ 'NATURECULTURES': THE POLITICS OF WILDLIFE HANNES LANG: PEAK FRI 6 DEC 2013, 6PM 6PM: Talks Dr Helen Hughes, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Surrey, and Dr Kathryn Yusoff, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, will each give a short talk on different aspects of Peak. 7PM: Screening: Peak Shot in cinemascope and visually stunning, Peak tells the story of an Alpine ski resort in South Tyrol affected by climate change. Director Hannes Lang observes the lives in and around the commercial resort. At night, the tractor crawlers rattle through the snow to groom the ski slopes. At an altitude of just under 3000 metres, excavators, supported by dynamite, dig into the ground to create a reservoir feeding the machines that produce artificial snow, the by-product of a desalination machine manufactured in Israel. Parallel to the simultaneous destruction and upkeep of nature around the ski resort, other parts of the mountains see the disintegration and transformation of traditional communities. Young people have long moved away. The old people that have stayed talk about how their hometown no longer has a future under the impact of the invasion and hostile takeover of the Alps by ski tourism. Peak – Über Allen Gipfeln (Peak). Germany/Italy 2011, colour, 35mm, cinemascope, 25 fps, 95mins, with English subtitles. Dir: Hannes Lang. Trailer: http://vimeo.com/62485123 From ca. 8:40PM: Discussion and a Drinks Reception The screening will be followed by a discussion and a drinks reception for the book launch of Screening Nature: Cinema Beyond the Human, edited by Anat Pick and Guinevere Narraway (Berghahn, 2013). http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en11724666v.htm VENUE AND TICKETS Goethe-Institut London 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PH T 020 7596 4000, [log in to unmask] www.goethe.de/london / www.facebook.com/goethe.institut.london / @GI_London1 Tickets: £3 per session. Free for Goethe-Institut Language Students and Library Members. Booking Essential. For more information on these screenings please contact: Philip Scheffner: Maren Hobein, [log in to unmask] ‚Nature Cultures‘: The Politics of Wildlife: Anat Pick, [log in to unmask]