TEXTUR (“Texture”) is a series of books that we started last year with a publication about Angela Schanelec. The concept is to publish each book using different sources. In this way, we want to do justice to the diverse working methods of filmmakers, the talents of different authors, the range of influences that have an impact on all of them and invite unusual collaborations. In short: we would like to show the same flexibility and openness that distinguishes the filmmakers featured in these books, and thus free ourselves from the fetters of convention.
The name TEXTUR has not been chosen at random. It is a German word, but is also understandable in many other languages; it takes into account the fact that the project was born in Vienna and at the same time signals its international claim: the content is in English.
And the idea of tactility inherent in TEXTUR is redeemed both in terms of content and form: as praise for the infinite richness of cinema’s senses as well as in the simple pleasure of being able to preserve a small object, hold it in one’s hand and occasionally leaf through it.
TEXTUR #2 is dedicated to Kelly Reichardt, whose film FIRST COW, one of the great films of this year, will be shown as part of the Viennale. The volume contains an essay by the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, an article by the filmmaker Jem Cohen about the passion that is inherent in the handiwork of this medium, two poems that were especially written for this publication by the poet Eileen Myles, a story by Maile Meloy, and numerous other written and visual contributions and interviews.
