Music Documentary
Paths Through the Labyrinth – The Composer Krzysztof Penderecki
Wege durchs Labyrinth – Der Komponist Krzysztof Penderecki
Anna Schmidt
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE Germany, Poland, 2013 DCP, color, 88 min Director: Anna Schmidt Cinematography: Adam Bajerski, Stephan Boerger, Bogumil Godfrejow, Sebastian Hattop, Carsten Waldbauer Editing: Thomas Wellmann, Steffen Herrmann Sound: Christian Reiß, Thomas Chapman, Daniel Fischer, Johannes Doberenz Production: Holm Taddiken & Ulli Pfau for EIKON Media Executive Production: Marek Nowowiejski for Bow & Axe Entertainment World Sales: C Major Entertainment Screening Copy: EIKON Media Involved TV Channels: MDR, TVP
Anna Schmidt:
Inspired by That Fervour – 400 Years of the State Orchestra Weimar (2000), The Royal Children (2001), Irish Oranges (2002), Mission Antarctica (2008), Tracking in Ruins – The Steel Mill of Maxhütte (2008), The 10 Commandments (2008), Tracking in Ruins: ORWO Wolfen (2010), The Raffael of the Pope. The Painter Michael Triegel (2011), Tracking in Ruins: Praktica-Cameras from Saxonia (2011), Verdis World (2013), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – A Musical Rebel (2014)
Anna Schmidt & Dirk Schneider: White Glory and Big Plans (2006)
A portrait of the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, who at the age of 81 is still traveling the world to conduct performances of his own music. Penderecki built his reputation as a Polish avant-garde composer in the 1960s, introducing a new form of music notation along the way, and he is still broadening his horizons to include other styles. There are appearances from Radiohead’s guitarist Johnny Greenwood – who has written a modern adaptation of Penderecki’s Polymorphia – as well as the Dutch violinist Janine Jansen and the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda, a longtime friend of the composer. Filmmaker Anna Schmidt follows Penderecki from Krakow to Munich, Vienna and then Leipzig, and we quickly learn that he isn’t one to avoid conflict when his compositions are being rehearsed. Walking in the landscaped gardens of his Luslawice estate, where he has lived with his wife for decades, Penderecki discusses his sense of harmony and structure. These conversations about his life and search for new music (“For me, a maze is a symbol of the search”) combine to form a multilayered portrait of the man whom the Guardian has described as “Poland’s greatest living composer.”
The Possibilities Are Endless James Hall, Edward Lovelace
EUROPEAN PREMIERE
UK, 2014 DCP, color, 83 min
James Hall & Edward Lovelace:
Director: James Hall, Edward Lovelace Cinematography: Richard Stewart Editing: David Charap Music: Edwyn Collins Production: Julia Nottingham & Thomas Benski & Lucas Ochoa for Pulse Films Executive Production: Beadie Finzi & Maxyne Franklin for Britdoc Foundation, Sam Sniderman for Pulse Films, Lucy Cohen Screening Copy: Pulse Films Website: www.thepossibilities.co.uk
Arts & Crafts (2009)
Werewolves Across America (2010)
Edward Lovelace:
“The possibilities are endless.” This was one of the few coherent things (alongside “yes,” “no” and “Grace Maxwell” – his wife’s name) musician Edwyn Collins could still say following two strokes in 2005. The film starts with a brief excerpt from a talk show when Collins – former front man of Orange Juice and successful as a solo artist with the worldwide hit A Girl Like You – was still healthy. This is followed by flashes and spots, seemingly disjointed images accompanied by a faltering Collins in voice-over, explaining how he felt following the near-fatal brain hemorrhages. Parallel to Collins’s remarkable recovery, the words and images in the film gradually start to show greater cohesion and clarity. “He was very far away,” his wife and manager says in Helmsdale, Scotland, the place where the Collins family now lives and still works. Collins and Maxwell talk about their experiences with the strokes, what has changed and how they are coping. Their story is accompanied by excerpts of older and more recent concerts and the preparations for these, along with stunning footage of the Scottish landscape and scenes in which Collins’s son Will reenacts how his young father met his mother, demonstrating the depth of their union in an extremely moving way.
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