Directors Lounge screening:
Michael Brynntrup: meSelf, mySelf and iSelf
Film and video works
Thursday, June 30th, 21h
Z-Bar, Bergstr. 2, D-10115 Berlin-Mitte

Michael Brynntrup is an artist and filmmaker who has been probing the limits of independent, personal and experimental film since the 80's. Very early in his art career, he started off with Super-8 films, but soon experimented with multiple projections and collaborations with other artists. With „Jesus, der Film“ his collaboration took the form of a „cadavre exquis“, the joint product of a number of directors who only saw part of the work of their collegues, but who all were asked to have Brynntrup play the main character, Jesus. The resulting feature-long film became a legend, while little later, Brynntrup also became a well known director in the gay-and-lesbian cinema movement. His goal, however, was to never become monopolized by a certain scene, and thus, since his start, he has strived for a diversity of themes and genres in his work. Still, we can find the repeated and ongoing questions of the identity of the self, the questions, how the roles we play in society are being defined by gender and sexual orientation, and how the mirror of the other, and the mirror of death influences our lives. Last but not least, the artist adresses the question how much of an impact the mirror of media does have.

From June 28 to July 3, 2011 the Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid will create a space of discovery and reflection between new cinema and contemporary art in Berlin, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt

In the presence of artists and filmmakers from all over the world, this rare event will propose an international programme of film, video, multimedia. It includes 26 screenings, a looped video program, a cycle of debates and panel discussions.

This year's programme has been selected from 6000 submissions as well as by invitations made to some artists and filmmakers. It is the result of an elaborate international search for works: 150 works from Germany, France, Spain and 40 other countries, gathering internationally-known artists and filmmakers with young artists and filmmakers presented for the first time.

Detailed programme: http://art-action.org

Plenty: Joseph Cornell
Monday June 20th, 19h
Event Gallery, 96 Teesdale Street, Bethnal Green, London, E2 9PU

The aviary / Nymphlight / A fable for fountains
Joseph Cornell & Rudy Burckhardt, USA, 1955-57, 16mm, b/w & colour, sound, 19 minutes

A trilogy of films, united on a single reel, which offer a magical glimpse at New York long since passed. In each, a young woman drifts through the city’s streets and parks, embodying the artists’ distinctive qualities of melancholia and childlike wonder.

“Joseph Cornell describes the marginal area where the conscious and the unconscious meet.” (P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film)

The artist Joseph Cornell (1903-72) is best known for his enigmatic box constructions. His films likewise used found materials, but on occasion he employed filmmakers Rudy Burckhardt, Stan Brakhage or Larry Jordan to photograph original footage under his direction.

PLENTY is a free monthly screening series selected by Mark Webber, and forms part of the Brief Habits programme curated by Shama Khanna. Supported by Arts Council England.