Newsletter 2004/2005
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THE FASSBINDER FOUNDATION Newsletter 2004/2005 Dear Friends, Partners, Followers and Supporters of RWFF and FF Inc., Since we did not send out a Newsletter last year we thought we should not delay in sending you this year's Newsletter before the spring is out. To start with, there is one especially good piece of news: we have "modernized" our website. In future, you will be able to find the latest reports and information at www.fassbinderfoundation.de under the heading NEWS. The German version is running since March 1, 2005, the English version will be ready shortly, and the French version from April 1, 2005 on. It is not only past events which we have cause to celebrate. We were particularly delighted to move offices in December 2003 to our new base at Giesebrechtstrasse 7, which is in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg not far from the Kurfürstendamm. Our new premises have been specially designed for our needs, and the move was organized so impeccably by our employee and Curator Dr. Daniel Kletke, who heads up logistics and coordination, that just one day after the official moving date, we were able to resume daily business. Since 2000 –and thus also last year –the focus of our work has been on the development and prepa- ration of our extensive RWF manuscript archive as well as preparations for releasing further Fass- binder films on DVD. With 24 titles having been released in the USA to date, this year we are launch- ing DVD editions in France, Belgium, Spain and Japan. From April 2005, the titles of sets 3 and 4 al- ready announced by e-m-s will be continued by Kinowelt Home Entertainment under the Arthaus label. A further positive development is our achievement in terms of world sales. Not only were we able to gain the interest of Carlotta Films, one of the most distinguished distribution companies in France, in connection with the renewed screening of classics, but we have found that there is huge interest in Fassbinder also in the UK, Ireland, Russia, Poland, Japan and China. The Fassbinder Commemoration Year 2005 –for on May 31, 2005, RWF would have been 60 years old –is starting with something of a minor sensation: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Im Land des Apfel- baums, poems and prose from the Cologne years 1962/63 is being published by SchirmerGraf on February 25, 2005 and will no doubt cause quite a stir. And last of all, a particularly happy event: the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris is showing a Fass- binder exhibition and retrospective commencing on April 13, 2005 and continuing until June 6, 2005. To accompany this, the French translation of the excellent book Fassbinder`s Germany by Thomas Elsaesser will be published, and on June 4, 2005 a renowned group of Fassbinder experts will be holding a round-table discussion at the Centre Pompidou. There is also news on the restoration of Berlin Alexanderplatz, but more on that below. Sincerely yours, Juliane Lorenz, President of RWFF, Berlin and FF Inc., New York 1 NEWLY PUBLISHED: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Im Land des Apfelbaums Gedichte und Prosa aus den Kölner Jahren 1962/63 [In the Land of the Apple Tree Poems and Prose from the Cologne Years 1962/63] Edited by Juliane Lorenz and Daniel Kletke Cover photograph: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, Berlin Linen, with dust jacket and bookmark 186 pages, with facsimiles €18.80 CHF 34.10 ISBN 3-86555-019-3 Rainer Werner Fassbinder would have been sixty years old on May 31, 2005. To mark the occasion, the poems and prose which he wrote as a 17-year-old in "exile" in Cologne will be published for the first time: impressive, moving documents of a young genius. Fassbinder recognized early on that he needed to express as an artist the things which would otherwise be impossible for him to convey. His first poems, and his Traum vom Hang nach Oben, are confident, casual, and yet infinitely sensitive, testifying impressively to this fact. Written in the years 1962/63 in Cologne, where he lived with his father and attended evening classes at high school, these texts already point to his whole anguished cosmos, to all his later themes. Published by SchirmerGraf, Munich Contact: www.schirmer-graf.de (An English translated publication is in preparation). 2 Rainer Werner Fassbinder Fassbinder über Fassbinder im Verlag der Autoren Edited by Robert Fischer 674 pages Br. € 29,50 ISBN 3-88661-268-6 Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982), author, director, dramatist and film-maker, was never one to hide himself away. From the outset, he spoke frankly and extensively in interviews with journalists and friends about himself and his work. It was as if he wished to supplement or correct the openly or obliquely autobiographical elements of his films and plays through personal statements and explana- tions. In conversation, Fassbinder always revealed himself to be acutely politically aware, analyzing social conditions astutely, and ever mercilessly self-critical. In order to understand his body of work, it is essential to read the interviews which he gave over the years. This volume of interviews brings together 30 conversations with Rainer Werner Fassbinder conducted between 1969 and 1982 and thus covering the entire career of the most important German director in the post-War period. What is special about this publication is that, for the first time, key interviews are reproduced in full and unabridged form. Highlights include Corinna Brocher's legendary Fassbinder interviews on the history of antiteater, and Christian Braad Thomsen's questions regarding Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte (Beware of a Holy Whore), Satansbraten (Satan's Brew), Chinesisches Roulette (Chinese Roulette) and other films. For the first time, the most important interviews given by Fassbinder to English, US and French magazines are printed here in German. Contact: www.verlag-der-autoren.de 3 04/13 –06/06/2005: Fassbinder exhibition and retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris A further honor for Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who would have been 60 on May 31, 2005, is a show dedicated to the German film-maker to be held in France at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. And there is more: on April 13, 2005, parallel to the retrospective "Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Un Cinéaste d'Al- lemagne", an exhibition on Fassbinder's life and work will also be opened. Notebooks, storyboards, stills and further rare documents will provide the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of Fass- binder's creative activity in all its different phases. The retrospective and exhibition will continue until June 6, 2005. Also on April 13, 2005, Carlotta Films will be releasing eight more Fassbinder films in the French movie theaters. http://www.cnac-gp.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/0/05047FC78FD70DF4C1256F930048D247?OpenDocument EUROPEAN DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR –FASSBINDER PRIZE Since 1997, the RWFF has been presenting the "European Discovery of the Year – Fassbinder Prize“, an honor and a monetary award which is given in the context of prize-giving by the European Film Academy in December each year –held in a different European city every time –to an exceptional European director. Prizewinner for 2003 honored in Berlin Andrei Zvyagintsev's Vozvrashcheniye –The Return –(Russia), is a tormenting film. It describes the story of two brothers whose father suddenly appears as if from nowhere. They only know him from an 4 old photo. Father and sons go on their first joint summer holiday to a lake in northern Russia. But this first family holiday becomes a journey into hell: anger, frustration, aggression and hate break out in all three of them. The sons settle the score with their father over their lost childhood, and their father at- tempts to force his new role as a father through authority. "I first saw Fassbinder's films in 1992 at a retrospective in Moscow," explains Andrei Zvyagintsev. "These were masterpieces, so honest, so deep - they just knock you down,“ his interpretertranslating alternately into German and English. The film by this young Russian film-maker from Novosibirsk had unexpectedly also won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in 2003. "I am particu- larly proud to be able to accept this prize," he declared, visibly moved. Patrice Chéreau, who pre- sented the Fassbinder Award, said he had regrettably only met Fassbinder once and had far too little time to speak to him. Thus it was all the more moving to be able to present this particular prize. New selection procedure for the Fassbinder Prize from 2004 Since, in recent years, the wish has been increasingly expressed from among EFA members that they might participate actively in choosing the winner in the category European Discovery of the Year – Fassbinder Prize, the procedure has been changed so that the winner in this category can also be selected by all EFA members. Until now, the procedure involved five members of the European Film Academy and five members selected by the Fassbinder Foundation each proposing two European films which were then viewed by a jury consisting of Laurence Kardish of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Derek Malcolm of The Guardian, London, and Pierre-Henrie Deleaux, Paris, former head of the Cannes International Film Festival, Section La Quinzaine des Auteurs. The prizewinner was then chosen by this jury. The prize for 2004 was presented in Madrid With Certi bambini –Stolen Childhood (Italy), Andrea and Antonio Frazzi have created a vivid and committed film about street children in Naples. The movie tells the story of orphan Rosario, whose life is dominated by a desperate struggle for survival and whose hopes of a different life are dashed by the merciless rules of a corrupt political system, the laws of the Mafia and the indifference of a Mafia- dominated society.