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This screening features two rarely seen black and white, 35mm and 16mm films. Larisa Shepitko’s feature The Ascent, set in the Eastern front forests of Belorussia during the second world war, is paired with Ute Aurand and Ulrike Pfeiffer’s Umweg, a travelogue through 1980s West Germany.
The Ascent was the late Soviet director Larisa Shepitko’s last film. The experimental feature follows Belorussian soldiers and their ensuing capture by invading Nazis. Based on a novella by Russian novelist Vasil Bykov, the film confronts the complexity of the human condition in the face of war. The soldier protagonists, Sotnikov and Rybak, are at once at war with the enemy; battling the physical terrain of a harsh Belorussian winter; and undergoing their own personal struggles with power, trust and loyalty. The Ascent received the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival.
Ute Aurand and Ulrike Pfeiffer’s 1983 collaboration Umweg was filmed during the winter of 1981 while both filmmakers were participating in New Films by Women from Berlin, a tour of recent work that visited eight cities in then-West Germany. Using the train window as a framing device, their film rhythmically captures the hypnotic winter landscapes they pass through, interspersed with thoughts that imbue the passing scenery with optimism and narrative ambiguity.
The Ascent was the late Soviet director Larisa Shepitko’s last film. The experimental feature follows Belorussian soldiers and their ensuing capture by invading Nazis. Based on a novella by Russian novelist Vasil Bykov, the film confronts the complexity of the human condition in the face of war. The soldier protagonists, Sotnikov and Rybak, are at once at war with the enemy; battling the physical terrain of a harsh Belorussian winter; and undergoing their own personal struggles with power, trust and loyalty. The Ascent received the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival.
Ute Aurand and Ulrike Pfeiffer’s 1983 collaboration Umweg was filmed during the winter of 1981 while both filmmakers were participating in New Films by Women from Berlin, a tour of recent work that visited eight cities in then-West Germany. Using the train window as a framing device, their film rhythmically captures the hypnotic winter landscapes they pass through, interspersed with thoughts that imbue the passing scenery with optimism and narrative ambiguity.
06:45 pm
Wed, 14 Nov 2018
Cinema 1
All films are ad-free and 18+ unless otherwise stated, and start with a 10 min. curated selection of trailers.
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no. 236848.