Auslandsreise

It begins in May and ends the same month a year later. In this period, Leonie meticulously reads the work of Italian writer Anna Maria Ortese. Her refined literature always pushes towards a philosophical enquiry into expression and experience, as well as into the relationship between art and tradition. Leonie’s final encounter with the translator of Iguana adds an additional hermeneutic layer: oppression. Yet this scholarly reader is not alone. At times, she is accompanied by an Argentinian, someone who (like Ted Fendt himself) lives in different languages and for whom translation is not only a linguistic problem, but one of existence. The other characters in this story read less regularly: one because she’s about to become a mother, the other because he never finds a permanent place to live over that entire year, a warning for all those who desire a certain way of life but do not take risks. Ortese’s peculiar grammar is not the only artistry on display here. The grammar of Fendt’s shots is beautifully ostentatious: he draws on the architecture of the city and the relationship it establishes with the changing seasons, as can be seen when he frames a cathedral in the background of a shot such that it is barely perceptible. (Roger Koza)

In the presence of Ted Fendt, Leonie Rodrian, Jenny Lou Ziegel and Hans Broich (producer).

Ted Fendt: BROKEN SPECS (2012, K), TRAVEL PLANS (2013, K), GOING OUT (2015, K), SHORT STAY (2016), CLASSICAL PERIOD (2018), OUTSIDE NOISE (2021), UNGLÜCKLICHE STUNDE (2023, K)