15° FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE CINEMA GIOVANI
Tribute To Robert Kramer
Point de depart / Starting Place
by Robert Kramer
Country: France
Year: 1993
Duration: 90'
Twenty three years after People's War, Robert Kramer returned to Hanoi with his camera on his shoulder and his desire to understand the Vietnam of the 1990's. He looks up the Vietnamese that he had met before, meets others, and explores the changes that have occurred over time. He looks for the traces of an itinerary and changes routes continually, fascinated by the faces, gestures, and places that he manages to gather outside of any preestablished scheme. Like a true music score, Point de départ explores a country right in the middle of a great change.
"Many of the ideas that some people died for have been forgotten. It is necessary to read through the pages of recent history. The 'starting place' is really after the film. It is now. I could have made this film in another place. The most important thing was not to talk particularly or exclusively about Vietnam, but was, above all, this idea of 'starting place.' Because that's the way things are, we have to start out from a look at what we have experienced over the last thirty years" (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 He has written two unpublished novels, numerous poems, plays and short stories.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
Regia e camera: Robert Kramer.
Editor: Christine Benoît, Robert Kramer, MarieHélène Mora.
Luci: Niguyen Thuoc.
Testo nel treno: Duong Thu Huong.
Sound: Olivier Schwob.
Production company: Les Films d'Ici La Sept L'Association des Cinéastes Vietnamiens, con la partecipazione di Channel Four e del Centre National de la Cinématographie.
Produttori delegati: Richard Copans, Ruben Korenfeld.
Editor: Christine Benoît, Robert Kramer, MarieHélène Mora.
Luci: Niguyen Thuoc.
Testo nel treno: Duong Thu Huong.
Sound: Olivier Schwob.
Production company: Les Films d'Ici La Sept L'Association des Cinéastes Vietnamiens, con la partecipazione di Channel Four e del Centre National de la Cinématographie.
Produttori delegati: Richard Copans, Ruben Korenfeld.
