Engram Of Returning

The waste of film (history) production can be found on flea markets and in the collections of educational institutions as well as film and television archives and does not lack in powerful images and spectacular scenes. The filmmakers represented in this program use material from scientific documentaries, demonstrative educational films, home movies, and documentaries about landscapes and animals, but destroy its “meaningful” progression. Rather than aiming to create explanatory narratives, their reworking and use of atypical montage serves to explore how the images resonate with one another. They do not foreground deconstruction or media criticism, but rather playful transformation and their appreciation of the original material. Comparable to a poet’s attention for the rhythm of language, these lyricists of found footage privilege cyclic flow, glorious and/or abstracted images and the amplification of emotional content via silence and music. Siegfried Fruhauf writes about his MIRROR MECHANICS: “The film as mirror, and consequently the phenomenon of identification, is condensed into a kind of essence of the possibilities of film.” The material film aesthetics of Wilhelm and Birgit Hein are particularly radical, achieving a plasticity in their exploration of the film strip, its destruction, and disintegration that can only be experienced in cinema screenings. (B.B.U.)

All retrospective films that will be shown at the Filmmuseum after the Viennale - from 2.11. - can of course also be reserved as usual at filmmuseum.at or by calling 01/533 70 54 and purchased at the box office of the Austrian Film Museum. The prices of the Austrian Film Museum apply.