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“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
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STORY
A live performance by Art Klinika, Novi Sad, Serbia at Lothringer 13, Städtische Kunsthalle München, June 2008.
The life of individuals today is under threat. Different and numerous dangers constantly prey on us. At home, in the street, in the workplace…
a moment of distraction or bad luck and in an instant we are a victim.
What is forensic marking?
After a violent death at the crime scene the police mark the outline of the body. The victim is outlined in the position that death found him/her. The crime scene is photographed, the victim taken away and only the white chalk outline of the body remains.
How do we protect ourselves?
Life can be saved in many different ways but the best one is caution.
If we imagine the situations in which we are susceptible to danger, if we predict possible traps, if we probe and train death, we gain resistance and we can protect ourselves.
How is it done?
We outline the body with chalk and thus evil remains captured on the black paper. We use art as protection.
CREDITS
Produced, Directed & Edited by Michal Kosakowski
Concept by Nikola Dzafo, Nicola Macura, Radivoj Doderovic
Music by Paolo Marzocchi
Cinematography by Radivoj Doderovic, Michal Kosakowski
Special Thanks to Goran Mimica, Therese Davies, Uli Aigner
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STORY
While modern and contemporary art have long been accepted as belonging to varied “environments” including public space, contemporary music is still attached to its self-created “ghetto” - the concert hall. Any risk of bringing contemporary music to the streets is up to the musicians as well as to the audience.
This risk has been taken by the Munich Chamber Orchestra and its artistic director Alexander Liebreich with the Streetmusic Project: On October 12th and 13th 2007, the Chamber Orchestra performed at different locations around the city of Munich, Germany, playing works by Erhan Sanri, Gideon Klein, Alfred Schnitke, Luciano Berio, John Adams and Tom Johnson.
The emotions in the faces of both the musicians and the passers-by reflect the music and show an active participation in music, often absent in the cultural mainstream. Contemporary music as remembrance, as a witness to the 20th century, to the holocaust, to modernity.
The film grants access for a wide audience to contemporary music through the precise dramaturgy created by the compositions. The movie illustrates the relevance of cultural production in relation to society and politics.
CREDITS
Director, Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Concept: Michal Kosakowski, Uli Aigner
Producer: Michal Kosakowski
MUNICH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Artistic Director: Alexander Liebreich
Chamber Orchestra: Daniel Giglberger, Max Peter Meis, Gesa Harms, Bernhard Jestl, Viktor Konjaev, Mario Korunic, Romuald Kozik, Mary Mader, Eri Nakagawa-Hawthorne, Kelvin Hawthorne, Stefan Berg, Maria Hristova, Nancy Sullivan, Peter Bachmann, Benedikt Jira, Michael Weiss, Onur Özkaya
MUSIC
Erhan Sanri (*1957)
Vier Vertonungen visueller Gedichte und eine visuelle Phantasie
für Violine und Kontrabass (1986/1991)
Tom Johnson (*1939)
Formulas für Streichquartett (1994)
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
Streichtrio (1985)
John Adams (*1947)
Shaker Loops – 1. Satz - Fassung für Streichorchester
(1978, revised 1982)
Tom Johnson (*1939)
Eight Patterns For Eight Instruments (1979)
Luciano Berio (1925-2003)
Duetti per due violini (1979-1983)
Bernhard Jestl (*1960)
Das Spiel der Wolken und des Regens für Violine und Viola (1996)
- Uraufführung -
Gideon Klein (1919-1945)
Streichtrio (1944)
Gideon Klein (1919-1945)
Partita für Streichorchester (1944, arr. 1990)
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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
Producer, Cinematographer, Editor, Director: Michal Kosakowski
Music: Capillary, Paolo Marzocchi, Ray Sweeten
Sound Design: Fabian Lorenz / MG-Sound Vienna
Production Manager: Heli Leitner
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WATCHFILM
CREDITS
Director, Writer, Editor, Producer: Michal Kosakowski
Music: Paolo Marzocchi
Title Design: Rafal Kosakowski
SYNOPSIS
“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 Movie / 12th Milano Film Festival - Italy
Best Original Music / 4th Sedicicorto Int. Film Festival Forli - Italy
2006
Best Experimental Film / 14th Int. Short Film Festival Santiago - Chile
Special Mention of the Jury / Nowords Film Festival - Bolzano - Italy
FESTIVALS
2008
Progressive Film Festival - Dawn Westlake - USA
7th Int. Best of Short Films Festival - La Ciotat - France
Imaginaria Int. Film Festival - Conversano - Italy
Maremetraggio Int. Short Film Festival Trieste - Italy
Corto In Bra International Short Film Festival - Italy
DeBalieCinema - Amsterdam Shorts - Netherlands
2007
16e Festival du film de Vendome - France
Festivals Tous Courts - Aix-en-Provence - France
12th Siena Int. Short Film Festival - Italy
FIKE 2007 - Évora Int. Short Film Festival - Portugal
Short Film Festival Opere Nuove No Words - Bolzano - Italy
Amsterdam Film Experience 2007 - Netherlands
KunstFilmBiennale Köln Bonn - Germany
Flanders 34th Int. Film Festival Ghent – Belgium
Underdox 02 – Dokument und Experiment – München – Germany
Mecal 2007 - X Festival Int. de Cortometrajes de Barcelona - Spain
Viewmaster 07 – Courtisane Compilation – Ghent - Belgium
36th International Film Festival Rotterdam - Netherlands
9. Int. Festival für Stummfilm und Musik - Berlin - Germany
Tampere Film Festival - Tampere - Finland
Videoformes 2007 - Clermont-Ferrand - France
Next Film Festival - Bucharest - Romania
Alphaville Hoch 10 - Gartenbau Film Festival - Wien - Austria
IndieLisboa 2007 - 4th Int. Independent Film Festival - Lisboa - Portugal
EMAF - 20. European Media Art Festival - Osnabrück - Germany
SFF.006 - Sopot Film Festival - Sopot - Poland
Where is the Love? - Int. Short Film Festival - Bucharest - Romania
Rencontres cinématographiques de la Seine-Saint-Denis - France
6th KaraFilm Festival - Karachi - Pakistan
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STORYFrom a very early age, Kokocinski has lived an adventurous and overall extraordinary life, a man of a thousand lands and memories. Born in Italy, in Porto Recanati in 1948, from a Russian mother and a Polish father, having spent his childhood first in Brazil, among the Guaraní tribe, and later in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, where in the 1960s he joined a circus as a horse acrobat, he has since followed his cosmopolitan nature with the free spirit of a true artist. He finally settled down in the town of Tuscania, in the Etruscan North Lazio, where he has set up his atelier in a disused medieval church.
CREDITS
Director, Writer: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Music: Francis Kuipers
Producer: Michal Kosakowski
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CREDITS
Director, Writer: Uli Aigner
Cinematographer, Editor, Sound: Michal Kosakowski
Title Design: Gerhard Paul
Producer: Uli Aigner, Michal Kosakowski
Cast: Lisa Erb, Tobias Yves Zintel, Matze Görig, Peggy Meinfelder, Franka Kaßner, Lena Bröcker, Franziska Schwarz, Anna Witt, Anna McCarthy, Stefanie Trojan, Florian Simon Winter, Daniela Leiter
SYNOPSIS
ghostAkademie has been created together with 13 students and graduates from the Munich Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der bildenden Künste).
The artists’ works have been condensed into possible teaching contents. The following chairs (Lehrkanzeln) have been established: horror vacui, film, product, politics, matter, everyday life, experiment, superficiality, body, practical (relative) theory, faith.
The ghostAkademie teaching program, consisting of video lectures, is an open cycle of artists’ portraits following a half-hourly schedule and presented as a large-scale projection.
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CREDITS
Director: Michal Kosakowski
Writer: Joseph Denize, Goran Mimica
Music: Paolo Marzocchi
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Assistant Director: Evelyn Eberhardt
Dialogue Consultant: Therese Davies
Sound: Heli Leitner
Sound Design: Fabian Lorenz
Title Design: Rafal Kosakowski
Flame Artist: Michael Lung
Producer: Michal Kosakowski
Cast: Goran Mimica, Joseph Denize
SYNOPSIS
When his routine is broken by the disappearance of the coffee, Bill puts it down to his early morning confusion, but when the same thing happens to a pair of shoes he needs for a funeral, a feeling of uneasiness creeps in. His confusion grows along with the number of objects that vanish. Sam’s visit reveals similar concerns. When Sam disappears Bill rushes out of his house, funeral flowers in hand, to find, turning back, that his front door is no longer there.
FESTIVALS
2005
Signes de Nuit - Festival Int. De Courts-Métrages - Paris - France
9th Int. Indep. Film Festival “Jutro Filmu 2005″- Warszawa - Poland
2004
45th Int. Film Festival - Brno - Czech Republic
40a Mostra Int. Del Nuovo Cinema - Pesaro - Italy
Int. Short Film Festival Leuven - Leuven - Belgium
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CREDITS
Director, Writer: Michal Kosakowski, Evelyn Eberhardt
Cinematographer: Michal Kosakowski, Evelyn Eberhardt
Music: Graham Stark
Producer: Michal Kosakowski, Evelyn Eberhardt
SYNOPSIS
„Movimento” is a documentation of the transshipment and trading ports of Szczecin and Swinoujscie, Poland.
The focus on the audio-visual representation of the work gives a new and unusual view of the ports’ daily business.
Mechanical movements become a picturesque sequence of actions, in which the emphasis lies not on the specific material or goods transported, but on the atmosphere created through image and music.
FESTIVALS
2005
9th Int. Indep. Film Festival “Jutro Filmu 2005″- Warszawa - Poland
2004
Docupolis - 4th International Documentary Festival Barcelona - Spain
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CREDITS
Director, Writer: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Music: Apocalyptica, A. Kisser, Igor G. Cavalera
Producer: Michal Kosakowski
SYNOPSIS
Children operate and marvel at the arsenal of the Austrian Army during National Holiday in Vienna. By juxtaposing scenes from computer-games the children become figures of a simulated war-game. The ballet-like style amplifies the illusion of war we learn to consume as given facts from an early age on, and at the same time shows the folly of it.
AWARDS
2003
8th Milano Film Festival - Milano - Italy / Best Soundtrack Award
FESTIVAL
2004
17. Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Stuttgart - Germany
FIKE 2004 - Evora Int. Short Film Festival - Evora - Portugal
Diyarbakir Short Film Days - Diyarbakir - Turkey
2003
ZKM/Int. Medienkunstpreis 2004 - Karlsruhe - Germany / Nomination
11th Int. Art Film Festival - Trencianske Teplice - Slovakia
Le Festival du Court Metrage de Nice - France
20. Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- und Videofest - Kassel - Germany
15. Ankara Int. Film Festival - Ankara - Turkey
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CREDITS
Director, Writer: Michal Kosakowski
Music: Mosa Sisic
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Sound: Evelyn Eberhardt, Heli Leitner
Title Design: Johann Auer
Producer: Michal Kosakowski
Cast: Mosa Sisic, Jasmina Sisic, Josef Brachner, Snezana Sisic, Miki Sisic
SYNOPSIS
„Gipsy Express“ is an emotional journey through the musical world of Mosa Sisic, violinist with heart and soul. Mosa Sisic is Romany, stems from a traditional dynasty of violinists from former Yugoslavia, and has been living in Vienna for 37 years now.Life in Vienna has inspired Mosa Sisic to exceed the bounds of the traditional Romany music and to connect the Middle Eastern sounds of the Balkans with elements from Austria and the whole world. The consequent, very special style leads us on a way of pure zest for life but also deep melancholy. In its energy loaded and direct way Mosa Sisic tells about his love of music and of Vienna, his spiritual musical tie with God and the boundless dedication to his violin.
AWARDS
2003
Special Mention of the Jury / Shorts on Screen - Wien - Austria
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CREDITS
Director: Michal Kosakowski
Writer: Uli Aigner
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Flame Artist: Michael Lung
Sound Design: Michal Kosakowski
Title Design: Johann Auer
Producer: Michal Kosakowski
Cast: Josef Paul
SYNOPSIS
Josef is walking through town in his big rubber wellies.
His eyes are scanning the surroundings, his ears the sound of it.
He is exploring his very own wonderland.
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Excerpt
CREDITS
Director: Michal Kosakowski
Writer: Alexander Viscio
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Assistant Director: Heli Leitner
Flame Artist: Michael Lung
Sound: Michael Berz, Oliver Brosenbauer
Producer: ORF Kunststücke
Cast: Alexander Viscio, Michaela Math, Heli Leitner, Evelyn Eberhardt, Bettina Bruder
SYNOPSIS
VAL is a documentary by Michal Kosakowski of the art work of Alexander Viscio produced by ORF.
VAL - Vehicles for Another Landscape depicts a series of transformations of images and objects used to get things done while “living my life in Wien”. From a carnival ride to a corporate logo, a sobriety test to an umbrella, an enlarged baby-walker to an even larger inflatable “Schwimmflügel” and a raven to a basketball.
ON AIR
ORF Kunststücke - 13 December 2001
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CREDITS
Director, Writer: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Producer: Michal Kosakowski
Cast: Alexander Viscio
SYNOPSIS
A film documentary of the Live -Site installation/performance by Alexander Viscio.
“The Johnnie Walker’s Sobriety Test was a large Kinder-walker for adults to help them manoeuvre through a new and strange city without getting in danger of offended anyone. Being in a foreign country and without speaking the language and being unfamiliar with the politics and laws, can have you walking on eggshells. This sculpture is made of equipment usually found in storage or hardware stores. I build these objects to move around in space; using Garage Technologies to make big painting machines.”
Alexander Viscio
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CREDITS
Director, Writer: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Producer: Michal Kosakowski
Cast: Alexander Viscio
SYNOPSIS
A film by Michal Kosakowski of the Live-Site Installation/performance, Easy Killers and other Software by Alexander Viscio.
“The Software is an oversized inflatable I placed myself inside of while members of the viewing public took turns rolling me around, creating visual space through movement.”
Alexander Viscio
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Trailer
CREDITS
Director, Writer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer: Michal Kosakowski, Sergio Bosatra
Music, Sound Design: Ray Sweeten
Assistant Director: Sergio Bosatra, Eleonora Milesi
Executive Producer: Oliviero Toscani, Marco Müller
Producer: Fabrica Spa
Title Design: Rafal Kosakowski, Tom Hobbs
SYNOPSIS
The slogan „Holy War“ returns to cosmopolitan cities and brings with it, an entirely postmodern twist.
The film opens with the sawing of a huge fir tree which escalates into a chainsaw massacre of thundering machinery. While witnessing the consumption mania of pre-Christmas preparations, we are ironically reminded of the mobilisation of forces at war.
The adrenalin rush the ‘Christmas spirit’ initiates is charged by the illuminated advertisements ornamenting the shop windows.
The closing hours of Christmas Eve sets an atmosphere of threatening silence before the storm. The deserted streets that are only inhabited by the residue of consumerism, fade into the epiphanic finale of the New Year’s celebration on the 31st of December, at Vienna’s Stephansplatz.
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CREDITS
Director, Writer: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Producer: Oliviero Toscani / Fabrica Spa
SYNOPSIS
A profound insight into the fragile soul of a town.
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CREDITS
Concept, Director: Michal Kosakowski
Sound Design, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Producer: Oliviero Toscani / Fabrica Spa
SYNOPSIS
Fireworks are detonating in the black sky of a New Year’s Eve night. Is there a reason to celebrate?
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CREDITS
Concept, Director: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer, Sound Design, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Producer: Oliviero Toscani / Fabrica Spa
SYNOPSIS
Short sequences of architectural structures which remind us of a space shuttle. The countdown has already started. Just a few seconds before take-off. Does what we seem to recognize represent reality?
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CREDITS
Concept, Director: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer, Sound Design, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
Producer: Oliviero Toscani / Fabrica Spa
SYNOPSIS
A variety of products are being thrown into a shopping trolley which moves at high speed through the aisles of a gigantic supermarket. We recognize the familiar situation but the goods themselves seem to be far from our profane daily life.
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CREDITS
Concept, Director: Michal Kosakowski
Cinematographer, Editor: Michal Kosakowski
SYNOPSIS
The Kai Tak airport will be remembered nostalgically by many pilots, but its passing will be bemoaned by few. The landing on Runway 13 is justifiably famous in the aviation world, with its spectacular approach towards the mountain, and the last-minute turn to line up on the runway. The airport sits amidst the bustling, busy city of Hong Kong and creates an awestriking atmosphere to newcomers to Hong Kong. The famous Runway 13 is now part of history.
