9° FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE CINEMA GIOVANI
Proposals 1991

JeanMarie Straub - La resistenza del cinema

JeanMarie Straub - The resistance of cinema

Country: Italy
Year: 1991
Duration: 60'


I met JeanMarie Straub and did this interview in May, 1991, in Turin, at an international conference on HöIderlin set up by the Goethe Institute and the National Museum of Cinema. Its retrospective dedicated to Straub and Daniel Huillet included all the directors' films, with two films adapted from Friedrich HöIderlin's tragedy on the figure of Empedocles The Black Crime and The Death of Empedocles. Although a few minutes of the interview were edited out, it lasted more than an hour. The interview was really a way to evoke a fuller and more elegant encounter than a simple question and answer session. Straub is a rigorous, militant and intransigent thinker This interview is a political and cultural document of one of the greatest contemporary directors. He yields no ground to compromises on issues which range from the 'communist utopia' to the 'way to make film' from the Gulf' War to 'democratic fascism': which is the expression of a free market economy with no room for those outside of it and for those who are against the strict laws of profit. In their films, in fact, StraubHuillet commit acts of resistance and attack the dominant aesthetic of the film industry. This is maybe the hardest thing to understand in their work, even it their words seem to be elementary: 'There are those who poison the planet and those who poison souls. Our films are addressed to dulled senses. There are certain senses and certain sentiments that are in danger of disappearing from the earth, of becoming extinct like the dinosaurs. It's the fault of the social structures in which we live'." (Armando Ceste)

Biography

film director

Armando Ceste

Armando Ceste (Turin, 1942), after several experiences in underground cinema (his first short film, La lezione, was screened at the Festival del Cinema Indipendente Italiano in 1969 in Turin), in the beginning of the 70's he is one of the founders of Collettivo Cinema Militante in Turin. In the last years he has made several works, some of them in collaboration with the Archivio Audiovisivo del movimento Operaio e Demovratico in Rome. He has been artistic director at Valsusa FilmFest, film festival on the themes of historic memory and environment defense.

FILMOGRAFIA

La lezione (1969), I migliori anni della nostra vita (1987), Donato (1987), Nosferatu, ogni notte di fronte a me (1988), Das Rastel einer Strasse (1988), Morire d'amore (1988), Recita (1990), L'ultimo nastro (1991), Lontano dal golfo (1991), Jean-Marie Straub, la resistenza del cinema (1991), Finale di partita (1992), Marzo 1973 - I giorni della Fiat (1993), Due o tre cose (1994), Aria di golpe (1994), Milano 25 aprile (1994), Mai tardi (1996), Anna Karina. Il volto della Nouvelle Vague (1996), Le parole sono importanti (1996), Jean-Marie Straub. Lezione di cinema (1998), Viaggio alla fine del mondo (dove le storie vanno a finire) (1998), Rosso/Askatasuna (a proposito di un primo maggio di guerra) (1999), Romeo & Giulietta. Il gioco del film (2000), Abdellah e i suoi fratelli (2000), Erri De Luca. Dopo Genova (filastrocche sgangherate) (2001), Libera terra (2002), Fiatamlet (2003) Variazioni (doc, 2004).

Cast

& Credits

Director: Armando Ceste.
Director of photography: Arno Wagner.
Sound: Ernaldo Data.
Editor: Pier Milanese.
Production company: A.C. / Cinema e video, via Accademia Albertina 21, Torino, tel. 8306508.
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