15° FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE CINEMA GIOVANI
Tribute To Robert Kramer

Notre nazi / Unser Nazi

Our Nazi
by Robert Kramer
Country: France, GFR
Year: 1984
Duration: 114'


In 1984, not far away from the psychiatric hospital of the Martquis de Sade in Charenton, Thomas Harlan (the son of Veit Harlan) is shooting Wundkanal, a filmquestioning whose protagonist is Alfred Filbert, the ex Vice Commandant of the Nazi SS in person, who by then was over eighty years old. The criminal who invented "suicide by commission" is, in turn, "kidnapped" and interrogated by a group of terrorists in the fiction of the film, and by the film crew itself in the reality of the set. Faced with this extreme experience, Robert Kramer shoots a second movie on the same set, Unser Nazi. It is an explosive offscreen invasion of extraordinary force and drama that puts conflicts and contradictions on the scene that hitherto remained repressed or unspoken. It is not a "film on film", but a cruel stripping away - that does not spare anyone concerning what the right to judge implies.

"It's one of my favorite films. Notre Nazi is a really alive attempt to get inside an enigma" (Robert Kramer).

Biography

film director

Robert Kramer

Robert Kramer was born in New York in 1940. He studied philosophy and Western European History at Swarthmore College and Stanford University. He has written two unpublished novels, numerous poems, plays and short stories. In 1965 he organized the Newark Community Project (N-CUP) in an African-American community. He worked as a reporter in Latin America for various American publications. He worked with Peter Gessner on a film on the guerrilla movement in Venezuela. In 1966 he created Alpha 60 with Norman Fruchter, Robert Machover, Peter Gessner, and Mike Robinson. It was a sort of free cooperative of director-producers who later were channelled into the Newsreel movement, which Kramer helped found and organize. Kramer's Newsreel experience lasted from 1967 to 1971, during which about sixty short- and middle-length films were produced - documentaries, films of struggle, and agitation films. In the early 1980's he moved to Europe, and he currently is living and working in Paris.

FILMOGRAFIA

Regista/Director: Faln [Faln, 1965, In the Country [In campagna, 1966], The Edge [Il margine, 1967], Ice (id., 1969), People's War [La guerra del popolo, 19691, Milestones [Pietre miliari, 1975], Scenes from the Class Struggle in Portugal (Scene di lotta di classe dal Portogallo, 1979), Guns (Fucili, 1980), Un grand jour (en France) - Naissance [A Great Day (in France) - Birth / Un gran giorno (in Francia) - Nascita, 1981], A toute allure [As fast as you can / A tutta velocità, 1982], La peur [The fear / La paura, 1983], Sarkis al Woodrow Wilson - Musée d'Art Moderne [Sarkis at Woodrow Wilson - Museum of Modern Art / Sarkis at Woodrow Wilson - Museo d'Arte Moderna, 1984], Notre nazi / Unser Nazi [Our Nazi / Il nostro nazista, 1984], Diesel [Diesel, 1985], Un plan d'enfer [A Plan of Hell / Un piano infernale, 1986], X-Country [X-Country, 1987, inedito], Doc's Kingdom [Il regno di Doc, 1987], Route One / USA [Route One / USA, 1989], Dear Doc [Caro Doc, 1989, inedito], Maquette (brouillon de film) [Scale model (Draft of a Film) / Modello (Abbozzo di film) , 1990, inedito, incompiuto], Berlin 10/90 [Berlin 10/90, 1990-91], Sous le vent [Leeward / Sottovento, 1991], Series of Videoletters: Steve Dwoskin / Robert Kramer [Serie di videolettere: Steve Dwoskin / Robert Kramer, 1991, inedito], Ecrire contre l'oubli: pour Fidel Intrusca Fernández, Pérou [Writing against forgetting: for Fidel Intrusca Fernández, Peru / Scrivere contro l'oblio: per Fidel Intrusca Fernández, Perù, 1991], Point de départ / Starting Place (Starting Place / t.l. Punto di partenza, 1993), La Roue: Greg Lemond - Andrew Hampsten [The Wheel: Greg Lemond - Andrew Hampsten / La ruota: Greg Lemond - Andrew Hampsten, 1993], Walk the Walk [Walk the Walk, 1996], Le Manteau / Der Mantel [The Mantle / Il manto, 1996], Ghosts of Electricity [Fantasmi dell'elettricità, 1997].
Attore, sceneggiatore / Actor, screenwriter: Gestos e fragmentos (Gestures and Fragments / Gesti e frammenti, 1980-82) di Alberto Seixas Santos, Der Stand der Dinge (The State of Things, Lo stato delle cose, 1981) di Wim Wenders.

Cast

& Credits

Director and director of photography: Robert Kramer.
Editor: Sheherazade Saadi.
Music: Barre Phillips.
Sound: Olivier Schwob.
Montaggio del suono: Yasha Aginsky.
Cast and characters: Alfred Filbert (Doktor "S"), Thomas Harlan (il regista), Hertz Nativ (il truccatore), Ursula Langmann (l'interprete), Henri Alekan (il direttore della fotografia).
Production company: Quasar Film, Berlino - Reass Films, Parigi.
Menu