CONCERT

The 1st Edition of the FORUM OF NEW EUROPEAN OPERA in Abbaye de Pontlevoy in France (July 29th - August 1st, 2010) presents Michal Kosakowski’s JUST LIKE THE MOVIES. Paolo Marzocchi, the composer of the music of JUST LIKE THE MOVIES, performs the music as a live-performance on the piano.

DATE

July 29th, 2010 - 8.30pm

LOCATION

Euram-Center / Manège
Abbaye de Pontlevoy 1
Place du College
41400 Pontlevoy
France

LINKS

Forum of New European Opera - Programme
Paolo Marzocchi

FESTIVAL

Andy P. Smith presents Michal Kosakowski’s experimental movie JUST LIKE THE MOVIES on 9/11 at Williamsburg’s new cinema: IndieScreen.
Flick Film Fest shows 13 local and international short films, split between two hour-long programs, including discussions with some of the festival’s filmmakers.

DATE

July 27th, 2010 - 7.30pm

LOCATION

IndieScreen
285 Kent Ave. (at S.2nd St.)
Brooklyn, NY

LINKS

Flick Film Fest
Flick Film Fest - Press Release

PERFORMANCE

Associazione Amici della Musica di Modena
presents on the occasion of
PASSIONI (E STORIE) PER LA MUSICA
musica/dialoghi/narrazioni/improvvisazioni/sonorizzazioni

JUST LIKE THE MOVIES - LIVE
Paolo Marzocchi performs the music of the award-winning film JUST LIKE THE MOVIES live on the piano.

DATE

5 July, 2010 - 10pm

LOCATION

Chiostro Palazzo S. Margherita
Corso Canalgrande 103
41100 Modena - Italy

LINKS

Associazione Amici della Musica di Modena
Paolo Marzocchi

WEBSITE
TRAILER
VIDEOINSTALLATION
TV-REPORTAGE (GERMAN)

STORY

Between 1996 and 2006 Michal Kosakowski produced 49 short movies on the subject of killing. 49 killings, dreamt up by inhabitants of the metropolis of morbidity – Vienna. In 1996, Kosakowski began to inquire into fantasies of killing – at first among his relatives and friends, then widening the circle to include artists, musicians and, eventually, actors.

Within a decade, Kosakowski made 49 short movies, an essential element of which is the fact that these killing fantasies were put into practice with the complicity of the respondents themselves and depicted in the 49 videos. The collaborations between Kosakowski and his fictitious killers and victims in scripting, acting and staging the films could not have been closer or more intense. Michal Kosakowski himself was in charge of directing, camera, editing and special effects for all 49 films.

The fantasies of violence, all of which seem to feed on the explicit violence omnipresent in film and television, are stunning. Not a single one of the 160 performers has a criminal record or was ever involved in any real acts of violence. And yet poisoning, torture, suicide, execution, ritual murder, violence by and against women, men, and children, murders motivated by sexual, political, and mental aberration come face to face with the recipients’ emotions, naked and uncensored.

What Michal Kosakowski grants us is the rare occasion to experience a genuine taboo of our times and our Western society – death. A death that, for the time being, seems to present itself exclusively in the contemporary guise of the incessant violence staged by the media.

CREDITS

Director, Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Producer: Michal Kosakowski, Kulturreferat Landeshauptstadt München, Ortstermine
Music: Capillary, Paolo Marzocchi, Ray Sweeten
Sound Design: Fabian Lorenz / MG-Sound Vienna
Production Manager: Heli Leitner

SCREENING

June 14, 2010 / 6 pm

Ries Straver presents Michal Kosakowski’s award-winning film JUST LIKE THE MOVIES and his latest film THE HEART OF IT at Fabrica, the Benetton group communications research center in Catena di Villorba, near Venice.

LOCATION

Fabrica, Benetton’s Communication Research Center
Villa Pastega, via Ferrarezza
Catena di Villorba
31020, Treviso, Italy

FILM 1

JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Short Film/Experimental, Austria 2006, 21 minutes

Director, Writer, Editor, Producer: Michal Kosakowski
Music: Paolo Marzocchi

“It’s just like the movies!” was usually the first reaction of those watching the events of 9/11 in New York unfolding on their TV screens, no doubt recalling the endless number of catastrophes that Hollywood has proposed over the years. Now confronted with the reality of one such scenario – of unprecedented destructive and symbolic resonance - a feeling of déjà vu arises while looking at these images.
This paradoxical déjà vu presents a great challenge to our realism. If documentary images are graphic testimony of real events, then footage of 9/11 is evidence of the realization of the existing fiction.
Just Like the Movies is an attempt to re-construct the events of 9/11 by highlighting the parallels between the fictive worlds and the images of the real events.

AWARDS
2007 Best Short Film / 12th Milano Film Festival - Italy
2007 Best Short Film / Amsterdam Film Experience - Netherlands
2007 Best Original Music / 4th Sedicicorto Int. Film Festival Forli - Italy
2006 Best Experimental Film / 14th Int. Short Film Festival Santiago de Chile
2006 Special Mention of the Jury / Nowords Film Festival - Bolzano - Italy

FILM 2

THE HEART OF IT
Experimental/Documentary, Germany/Austria 2010, 26 minutes

Producer, Director, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Writer: Goran Mimica
Music: Paolo Marzocchi
Serbian with english subtitles

“Novi Sad, Serbia. The portrait of an urban society, the Balkans, 21st Century. The people in the center – the people at the periphery. Post-war spirit, but only because we know what happened in Ex-Yugoslavia. The Heart of It? The work which has to be done, day after day. The fact that you have to stoop down to collect a potato, every sack of cabbages has to be tied by hand. Because it is the daily work of the hands which transcends the reality of the present and shows life in itself in its hypnotic stream between the past and the future.”

LINKS

Fabrica - Benetton’s communication research center

OPENING

Invitation for the book presentation & show opening of Michal Kosakowski’s

49 MURDER FANTASIES

(publisher: Sensationsverlag, Mayerhof, with introduction by Prof. Dr. Bernd Scheffer - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and drawings by Max Boehme)

and the Austrian premiere of

FORTYNINE

(49 short films, 1996-2006, approx. 160 min)

DATE

June 10th, 2010 - 8 pm

LOCATION

Rauchsalon
Gumpendorferstr. 47
1060 Vienna, Austria

Duration/show: til beginning of Sept. 2010
open daily from 6 pm

ABOUT

The book “49 Murder Fantasies” consists of video interviews that Michal Kosakowski made with people of different professions and ages - on the topic of murder, death penalty, media, violence and god. All respondents participated before in the project “Fortynine”.

Between 1996 and 2010 Michal Kosakowski produced 49 short movies on the subject of killing. 49 killings, dreamt up by inhabitants of the metropolis of morbidity – Vienna. In 1996, Kosakowski began to inquire into fantasies of killing – at first among his relatives and friends, then widening the circle to include artists, musicians and, eventually, actors. Within a decade, Kosakowski made 49 short movies, an essential element of which is the fact that these killing fantasies were put into practice with the complicity of the respondents themselves and depicted in the 49 videos.

Not a single one of the 160 performers has a criminal record or was ever involved in any real acts of violence. And yet poisoning, torture, suicide, execution, ritual murder, violence by and against women, men, and children, murders motivated by sexual, political, and mental aberration come face to face with the recipients’ emotions, naked and uncensored.

“Fortynine” also featuring 7 Deadly Sins by Lucas Vossoughi

LINKS

FORTYNINE Trailer
FORTYNINE TV-Reportage
Rauchsalon
Sensationsverlag

SCREENING

June 2nd, 2010 / 8 pm

For the first time Michal Kosakowski presents his award-winning film JUST LIKE THE MOVIES at the Goethe-Institut Ukraine in Kiev, on the ocassion of the exhibition

WIR ARBEITEN - IHR SPINNT

curated by Prof. Olga Lagutenko and Oleksiy Koval

LOCATION

Goethe-Institut Ukraine
wul. Woloska 12/4
04655 Kiev

Entry Free!

LINKS

Goethe-Institut Ukraine
Oleksiy Koval
Invitation/Poster

SCREENING

May 19, 2010 / 9 pm

MINDPIRATES PRESENTS FILMMAKER NIGHT @ VEREINSHEIM

1st FILM

THE HEART OF IT

An experimental documentary by Michal Kosakowski and Goran Mimica
Germany/Austria 2010, 26 minutes

Serbian with english subtitles

“Novi Sad, Serbia. The portrait of an urban society, the Balkans, 21st Century. The people in the center - the people at the periphery. Post-war spirit, but only because we know what happened in Ex-Yugoslavia. The Heart of It? The work which has to be done, day after day. The fact that you have to stoop down to collect a potato, every sack of cabbages has to be tied by hand. Because it is the daily work of the hands which transcends the reality of the present and shows life in itself in its hypnotic stream between the past and the future.”

and

2nd FILM

JUST LIKE THE MOVIES

Short Film/Experimental, Austria 2006, 21 minutes
Director: Michal Kosakowski
Music: Paolo Marzocchi

This shortfilm won numerous awards such as the 2007 Best Short Movie / 12th Milano Film Festival - Italy, Best Experimental Film / 14th Int. Short Film Festival Santiago - Chile and Special Mention of the Jury / Nowords Film Festival - Bolzano - Italy.

“Its just like the movies!” was usually the first reaction of those watching the events of 9/11 in New York unfolding on their TV screens, no doubt recalling the endless number of catastrophes that Hollywood has proposed over the years. Now confronted with the reality of one such scenario – of unprecedented destructive and symbolic resonance - a feeling of déjà vu arises while looking at these images.

This paradoxical déjà vu presents a great challenge to our realism. If documentary images are graphic testimony of real events, then footage of 9/11 is evidence of the realization of the existing fiction.

Just Like the Movies is an attempt to re-construct the events of 9/11 by highlighting the parallels between the fictive worlds and the images of the real events.

LOCATION

Vereinsheim
Schlesische Str. 38
3rd Hinterhof, Kreuzberg
Berlin, Germany

Wine, beer and free popcorn

Doors Open at 8 pm
2 EURO Entrance

LINKS

The Heart of It - Trailer
Just Like the Movies - Film
Mindpirates

TRAILER
POSTER

STORY

“Novi Sad, Serbia. The portrait of an urban society, the Balkans, 21st Century. The people in the center – the people at the periphery. Post-war spirit, but only because we know what happened in Ex-Yugoslavia. The Heart of It? The work which has to be done, day after day. The fact that you have to stoop down to collect a potato, every sack of cabbages has to be tied by hand. Because it is the daily work of the hands which transcends the reality of the present and shows life in itself in its hypnotic stream between the past and the future.”

CREDITS

Producer, Director, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Writer: Goran Mimica
Music: Paolo Marzocchi
Electronic sounds: Paolo Marzocchi, Stefano Sasso
Cinematography: Michal Kosakowski, Evelyn Eberhardt
Edited: Michal Kosakowski
Sound: Evelyn Eberhardt

Serbian with english subtitles

LINKS

Goran Mimica
Paolo Marzocchi
Evelyn Eberhardt

JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
November 28, 2009 / 8 pm - University of Bayreuth

LOCATION

University Campus, Bayreuth
GW 1 (Geisteswissenschaften 1)
Universitätsstr. 30
95440 Bayreuth, Germany

9/11 AS CATALYST - AMERICAN AND BRITISH CULTURAL RESPONSES

Michal Kosakowski is showing his award-winning film JUST LIKE THE MOVIES on occasion of the International Conference organized by the University of Bayreuth and the University of Erfurt and sponsored by the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung and the Bavarian American Academy.

The conference will investigate North American and British cultural responses to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and to the social, political and cultural effects that have developed in their wake – including further attacks such as the ones in Madrid (2004), London (2005), and Mumbay (2008). While official political discourse was dominated by the notion of 9/11 as a historical rupture and by the conceptualization of a “War on Terror” that had to be fought with military force abroad and by curbing civil liberties at home, a close look at a wider spectrum of texts and discourses reveals that responses to the attacks and to the impact of terrorism in general have been much more diverse and complex. Whether the events of 9/11 mark a historical caesura or not – a contested claim that will be among the key issues at stake at the conference –, they certainly had a catalytic effect on the cultural production in various media: in literature, in the theater, in the news media, in film and television, in the realms of music and dance. This cultural production shows the first contours of a cultural memory that has symbolically negotiated experiences of shock, trauma, and commemoration as well as the various political, social and economic developments in our post-9/11 world. The papers presented will address first wave responses to the attacks as well as second wave responses of the years following; they will focus on their participation in the shaping of discourses of terror (mindedness), fear, violence, mourning, religion, nationalism, civil liberties, migration and globalization; they will explore how a diversity of ethnic, racial, and gendered perspectives have explored the diffusion of public and private sphere and how they have revisited (and revised) national narratives of identity formation; and they will discuss the aesthetic repercussions 9/11 and the “War on Terror” have had on the aesthetic and conceptual notions of postmodernism.

LINKS

9/11 as Catalyst - American and British Cultural Responses