14. Clair-Obscur Filmfestival
Films. Performances. Iconic Turn.
International movies of all genres, all lenghts, all kind of performances and full of surprises. A platform for the friends of the cinema, the cineasts and the users of the moving pictures. A dark horse for the eyes and many seductive musical curiosities for the ears. And that each and every year. When you leave the festival you not only do that in good cheer, but also full of plans of capturing your nightmares on celluloid. The festival is second to none in Switzerland and has no competitors to speak of. The dedication of the organisers born 2,000 years ago, but still young at heart is undisputedly independent, selfless and ensures artistic freedom and accepts no compromise. And they always accomplish that the audience scrutinises what is being offered, which is a far cry from the usual commercial entertainment fare of TV and the movies. Whether shown in the bunker, at the printer’s or in the safe, it’s always big cinema. We continue to follow …
FILM 1
SLEEPERS
Austria 2002, 3 min, Experimental
Children operate and marvel at the arsenal of the Austrian Army during National Holiday in Vienna.
FILM 2
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Austria 2006, 21 min, Experimental
“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.
FILM 3
HOLY WAR
Italy 1999, 42 min, Documentary
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.
SCREENINGS
SLEEPERS / Nov. 11, 2011 / 8pm
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES / Nov. 11, 2011 / 8.50pm
HOLY WAR / Nov 12, 2011 / 6pm
LOCATION
H95 - Raum für Kultur
Horburgstrasse 95
CH-4057 Basel
Switzerland
LINKS
People talk about their murder fantasies and live them in short films. 10 years later they are once again interviewed; the clips and interviews are combined to create a film. Director Michal Kosakowski, post production sound supervisor Olaf Mierau, sound designer Tatjana Jakob and composer Paolo Marzocchi will talk about their work between the extremes, mere ‘making-it-bearable’ and dealing with the yawning chasms of one’s own soul. Moderation: Vasco Hexel.
DATE
Nov 5, 2011, 11am-1pm
LOCATION
Kölnischer Kunstverein Theatersaal
LINKS
Zero Killed - official website
SoundTrack_Cologne 8.0
Paolo Marzocchi
Tatjana Jakob
Olaf Mierau
EXHIBITION
NKVextra
Michal Kosakowski / Just Like The Movies
DATE
September 11th to October 23rd, 2011
Opening / September 10th, 5 to 8 pm
Using pictures from 52 different Hollywood films the Polish film producer Michal Kosakowski attempts to reconstruct the events of 9/11 in a 21-minute montage.
The topic and concept of JUST LIKE THE MOVIES is a déjà vu experience. The pictures, spreading around the world after September 11th, seemed, because of the tangible scenarios, unreal and one was reminded of sequences from Hollywood disaster films. Since the beginning of film history American film studios have produced apocalyptic films. With the attacks on the World Trade Center the same pictures returned as shattering reality.
Kosakowski analyzed more than 600 Hollywood films produced before 2001. He used classics like “2001 - A space Odyssey” or “Taxi Driver” but also comics, action films and science fiction blockbusters.
With this material he constructed the day of disaster. Beginning with dawn over Manhattan he selected cut outs, humorously illuminating the American everyday life from the morning exercise to the office. From here the dramaturgy of the events increases up to the actual disaster. The déjà vu experience of 9/11 is reversed: the pictures of airplanes approaching New York’s skyline, worried passers-by looking up and falling bodies awaken memories of the event.
September 11th 2001 revealed how close reality and fiction are in the contemporary media reception. Based on this phenomenon JUST LIKE THE MOVIES provokes a reversal effect: A real event is described with fictional images. Like this it becomes obvious that the events of the 11 of September 2001 exceed the framework of our perception and mindset. Neither the pictures, supplied by the media, nor our own imagination are sufficient, to understand the actual dimension of destruction.
Music composed by Paolo Marzocchi for solo piano with electroacoustic sounds intensifies the irritating effect. To interlink the heterogeneous pictures of JUST LIKE THE MOVIES and at the same time to produce a “Hollywood Feeling”, he modelled the Ragtime music of the early 20 century. The bare sound of the piano contrasts the pictures of the destruction and intensifies the disastrous atmosphere of the video.
LOCATION
Nassauischer Kunstverein e.v.
Wilhelmstrasse 15
65185 Wiesbaden
Germany
LINKS
On the occasion of the exhibition Michal Kosakowski presents his film JUST LIKE THE MOVIES.
EXHIBITION
The Uncanny Familiar . Images of Terror
DATE
10 September to 4 December 2011
Opening Friday, 9 September 2011 . 7 pm
“The games must go on!” Avery Brundage . IOC President . 1972
“Show you’re not afraid!” Rudolph Giuliani . Mayor of New York . 2001
A masked man looking over a balcony. An airplane flying into a skyscraper. Hearing these descriptions, we immediately picture the scenes in our minds. We know exactly what events are meant. Pictures possess a tremendous power. Not only do they capture the decisive moment; they also influence public discourse, demanding reflection and response. Particularly after catastrophes and traumatic events, the ubiquity of the images makes the events themselves seem omnipresent, inescapable. Pictures of terror have an enormous, enduring power that holds the viewer in its thrall. They burn themselves deep into our collective memory. The exhibition “The Uncanny Familiar” curated by C/O Berlin examines the meaning of photography in our contemporary visual culture by exploring the visual processing of images of terror in recent decades. The events in Munich in 1972 and in New York in 2001 establish the temporal framework for the exhibition. Through the artistic confrontation with these events, political images are called into question; and the archival images presented lay bare the construction and illusion of photography.
This exhibition was organized to commemorate the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, and is curated by Felix Hoffmann for C/O Berlin. It features approximately 200 works from Spiegel magazine’s photographic archives and around 30 artists, including Thomas Hoepker, Dennis Adams, Michal Kosakowski, Coco Kühn, Fiorenza Menini, Thomas Galler, Thomas Ruff, Simon Menner, Peter Piller, Christoph Draeger, Thomas Hirschhorn, G.R.A.M., Walid Raad, Gael Peltier, Naeem Mohaiemen, Michael Schirner, Sarah Charlesworth, Mikael Mikael, Robert Boyd, Johan Grimonprez, Luuk Wilmering, Pascale Couvert, Natalie Czech, Reymond Depardon, Michael Schäfer, Marc Volk, and Malte Wandel.
A catalog will be published by Walther Koenig to accompany the exhibition.
Sponsored by Hauptstadtkulturfonds . Philip Morris
Supported by Amerikanische Botschaft . prohelvetia
Media partners Die Tageszeitung . tip . Dinamix
LOCATION
C/O Berlin - International Forum For Visual Dialogues
Oranienburger Strasse 35/36
10117 Berlin
LINKS
On the occasion of the NORDDEUTSCHER JOURNALISTENTAG in the MagnusHall in Hamburg Michal Kosakowski presents his award-winning film JUST LIKE THE MOVIES.
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES (2006, 21min) is a short film that samples footage from movies that were made prior to September 2001 to recreate the events of 9/11 in New York.
DATE
June 18, 2011, 12pm
LOCATION
MagnusHall
Amsinckstrasse 70
20097 Hamburg
Germany
LINKS
Norddeutscher Journalistentag DJV
Audiofile JUST LIKE THE MOVIES - Presentation: Heike Rost
[ MULTIMEDIALE VIDEOKUNST ]
Veranstaltet von der Galerie Stephan Stumpf und Massimo Fiorito
Der erstmalig stattfindende Videokunstabend in den Räumlichkeiten der Galerie Stephan Stumpf zeigt Videoarbeiten der Künstler Michal Kosakowski, Martine-Nicole Rojina und Fiorito&Fluturel.
Michal Kosakowski:
CASTING LIVORNO, 1998, 10 Min
SLEEPERS, 2002, 3 Min
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES, 2006, 21 Min
DEEP WATER HORIZON, 2010, 9 Min
Der Videokunstabend ist Angebunden an die Finissage der Ausstellung KuSL #5 der Nachbar Galerie Massimo Fiorito und Florian Decker.
DATE
1. April 2011, 19.30 Uhr
LOCATION
Galerie Stephan Stumpf
Schweigerstrasse 8
81541 München
LINKS
Sonderveranstaltung
»f-LUX - TRENDTAG FOTOGRAFIE 2011«
Samstag, 19. März 2011, 9 bis ca. 20 Uhr
Halle 27, Kochan & Partner, Hirschgartenallee 27 Rgb., 80639 München
Die Konferenz richtet sich an Art-Direktoren, Grafiker, Bildredakteure und natürlich Fotografen und ist hochkarätig besetzt.
Es erwarten Sie Vorträge, Präsentationen und Diskussionen mit:
MARTIN PARR, MARIE UND GHISLAIN DAVID DE LOSSY, MARKUS RASP, HORST MOSER, MARTIN SUMM, TOM FÄHRMANN, ERIK KESSELS, MICHAL KOSAKOWSKI, ANDREW SAUNDERS, BENJAMIN BENSER, ANTHONY HARRIS UND THOMAS KRULL von den Otto Studios…
Gemeinsam wollen wir den Fragen nachgehen:
Welche Trends sind erkennbar? Welche Auswirkungen haben flickr, ffffound & Co? Welches Bild ist international einsetzbar und welches nicht? Was ist bei crossmedialen Projekten zu berücksichtigen? Was ist eigentlich Skia und die magische Dichte 3.0?… und vieles mehr.
Michal Kosakowski präsentiert seinen Experimentalfilm JUST LIKE THE MOVIES (2006) und präsentiert danach das Konzept für seinen Fortsetzungsfilm SO OTHERS MAY LIVE.
Gebühr
115 Euro für tgm-Mitglieder
135 Euro für Nicht-Mitglieder
65 Euro für Studenten und Rentner (Platzkontingent begrenzt)
(die Gebühren enthalten Tagungsgetränke und Mittagsimbiss)
LINKS
MULTIPLICIDADE imagem_som_inusitados
presents
MODERN WARS 1999-2010
EXHIBITION, FILMS AND LIVE PERFORMANCE IN RIO DE JANEIRO
by Michal Kosakowski
Music: Paolo Marzocchi
HOLY WAR (1999)
SLEEPERS (2002)
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES (2006)
THE HEART OF IT (2010)
+
WORLD PREMIERE
DEEP WATER HORIZON (2010)
The music composer Paolo Marzocchi performs the music of JUST LIKE THE MOVIES live on the piano.
Curated by Batman Zavarese
_________________________________________________________
“MODERN WARS” - Introduction by Uli Aigner
Through Michal Kosakowski’s eyes we see the wars that are daily waged within every single person‘s existence.
It is not in the remote distance that Michal Kosakowski is searching for the extent of the world’s globalisation – he detects the battlefields in the microcosm of our own existence.
The idea for JUST LIKE THE MOVIES (2006) was born in a living room, in front of a TV set when, on September 11, 2001, those two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, generating images that were endlessly repeated over the following days and weeks all over the world.
Just like almost everyone else, Michal Kosakowski had a sort of instant déjà vu in this vertiginous moment – a feeling of having already seen all these images before. Thus began a long and arduous examination of hundreds of Hollywood movies, on the search for pertinent moments, clips of which were then assiduously assembled into a 21-minute reconstruction of the events of 9/11, all made from found footage shot long before that infamous date.
The film’s soundtrack, composed and produced by Paolo Marzzochi, recalls the first silent movies, hearkening back to the very birth of cinema itself.
A view of the sky over Munich, Germany, from his bedroom’s balcony, inspired the film DEEP WATER HORIZON (2010). The cloud formations recall drifting oil films, seeping oil leaks in deep waters. The catastrophe caused by the eponymous oil rig’s collapse in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was built up into a global disaster by the media. The news mercilessly exposes the contrast between unmanageable ecologic damage and weeks of helplessness caused by the failure of human technology to contain the disaster.
The necessity for HOLY WAR (1999) presented itself to Michal Kosakowski during the Christmas season while riding an escalator in an Austrian shopping mall, in which thousands of shoppers were busy clearing out quickly emptying shelves in hustle and bustle – a behaviour that reminded the director of the hoarding typical of imminent humanitarian disasters. Thus begins a process of build-up and provisioning that will find its first culmination in the gift giving on December 24 and will continue until the turn of the year. What Michal Kosakowski does in HOLY WAR is basically a documentation of how the battle is waged.
Other battlefields were identified by Kosakowski in his hometown Vienna, as on the national holidays, which are partly organised by the army – see SLEEPERS (2002). Each October 26, the Austrian army presents its heavy machinery and equipment to the public. Tanks, artillery, missiles. Families stroll through the exhibition area in harmonious community. However, once one isolates the children from the alleged protection of their families, the army’s weapons can be identified as instruments of an armament industry whose aim it is to socialise society’s youngest members for the benefit of the country’s defence. Thus the state’s concern for the normative power constituted by the family is unabashedly confirmed in such military activities on national holidays.
Michal Kosakowski pays a visit to a friend’s hometown, Novi Sad in Serbia, five years after the Kosovo war and the NATO air raids. THE HEART OF IT (2010) shows images of a destroyed city and scenes of the continuing functioning of the agronomy-based life of a post-war society. The quest for the HEART OF IT relates to the realities of contemporary life between loss, love of life, and survival techniques both physical and mental.
The consequences of modern war permeate everyday life. The battlefields of daily life demand an identification of complicity/responsibility and the acknowledgment of guilt or success within one’s own microcosm, caught as it is inside a globalised world. And this is perhaps what all Michal Kosakowski’s films, diverse as they are, have in common: in one way or another they all strive for insights into the nature of universal truths.
Fight the MODERN WARS!
DATE
18th December, 2010, 7.30 pm
19th December, 2010, 7.30 pm
LOCATION
Oi Futuro Ipanema
Visconde de de Pirajá, 54/3and Ipanema
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
LINKS
WATCH
DEEP WATER HORIZON
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
DOWNLOAD
Poster HOLY WAR
Poster SLEEPERS
Poster JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Poster THE HEART OF IT
Poster DEEP WATER HORIZON
FRUCHTHOF CO.WORKING presents
RHYTHM SECTION IM FRUCHTHOF
16th - 19th December 2010
A project on the subject “rhythm” in visual arts.
With Sofia Arvaniti, Elisabeth Eberle, Fotini Gouseti, Gonghong Huang, Michal Kosakowski, Oleksiy Koval, Yuliia Koval, Koho Mori-Newton, Kuros Nekouian, Olaf Probst, Stefan Schessl, Marco Schuler, Petros Sianos, Florian Weichsberger, Veronika Wenger.
Michal Kosakowski presents his film SLEEPERS (2002)
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.
Short Film/Experimental, 3 Minutes, Austria 2002, Colour/Stereo
Written, directed, edited and produced by Michal Kosakowski
Music by Apocalyptica, A. Kisser, Igor G. Cavalera
AWARDS
BEST SOUNDTRACK AWARD - 8th Milano Film Festival 2003, Italy
NOMINATION - INTERNATIONAL ART MEDIA AWARD 2003, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
OPENING
16th December, 2010, 6pm
LOCATION
Fruchthof
Gotzinger Straße 52
81371 München
2. Innenhof
2. Stock
DOWNLOAD
Flyer RHYTHM SECTION
Poster SLEEPERS
LINKS
Group Exhibition “FOR THE FIRST TIME”
Exhibition: November 19, 2010 - January 6, 2010
with works by Boban Andjelkovic, Matthias Beckmann, Jutta Bobbe, Juliana Borinski, Amina Broggi, Motoko Dobashi, Michael Dobrindt, Hedwig Eberle, Judith Egger, Manuel Eitner, Hakan Evcin, Karin Felbermayr, Fabian Fobbe, Maximilian Geuter, Johannes Hartmann, David Hinojosa, Benedikt Hipp, Franka Kassner, Michal Kosakowski, Bo Christian Larsson, Daniela Löbbert, Daniel Man, Matthias Männer, Silke Markefka, Nina Märkl, Enikö Marton, Annabelle Mehraein, Peggy Meinfelder, Philipp Messner, Luc Nam Nguyen, Nghia Nuyen, Eamon O’Kane, Elisabeth Reitmeier, Peter Riss, Emanuel Seitz, Société Réaliste, Max Srba, Nikolai Vogel.
These 37 artists followed our invitations to participate with an edition of not more than 10, with “unique editions” or unique works. The unique artworks are available for 200 euro, the editions 150 euro at least.
OPENING
18th November, 2010, 7pm
LOCATION
Art-Report Projects in der K4 Galerie
Klenzestr. 4
80469 Munich
Germany
LINKS
Art-Report Projects in der K4 Galerie
Edition Michal Kosakowski
OUT OF RANGE 2010 - ESPERIENZE DIGITALI E MULTIMEDIALI
“Il Mondo che verrà / The world that will come”
presents
Michal Kosakowski
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Live performance
piano: Paolo Marzocchi
DATE
13th November, 2010, 5pm
LOCATION
Castello di Frontone (Pesaro/Urbino)
Italy
LINKS
Amici della Musica Guido Michelli Ancona presents
Paolo Marzocchi, pianoforte e composizione
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES - LIVE PERFORMANCE
Paolo Marzocchi performs the music of Michal Kosakowski’s JUST LIKE THE MOVIES live on the piano.
DATE
21st October, 2010, 8pm
LOCATION
Società Amici della Musica “Guido Michelli”
Teatro Sperimentale
Via degli Aranci, 2
60121 Ancona
Italy
LINKS
Società Amici della Musica “Guido Michelli”
Paolo Marzocchi - Composer
Download JUST LIKE THE MOVIES Poster
Who actually “makes” a museum? How does a so-called cultural instituation take shape? Artist Uli Aigner (AT/DE) is interested in what motivates people involved in the field of culture to act as they do. Following the invitation by LENTOS and Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture, Uli Aigner has created a work in collaboration with the film-maker Michal Kosakowski that illustrates the involvement of a wide range of agents in the production of contemporary art. Two artists, an art historian and art theorist, a translator, a publicist and theorist and a museum director talk openly and with no holds barred about their roles and their self-perception. Neither documentary nor the proverbial “look behind the scenes”, this work is a subjective and independently conceived selection distilled from more than eight hours of talks between Uli Aigner and Stella Rollig and a succession of guests who dropped by at the LENTOS.
OPENING
October 16th, 2010, 7pm
LOCATION
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz
Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1
4020 Linz
CREDITS
DAS NEUGIERIGE MUSEUM / THE INQUISITIVE MUSEUM
Video presentation
HD/Colour/Stereo/30 min
Concept, director: Uli Aigner
Director of photography, editor: Michal Kosakowski
Production: Kopolismedia
Music: Box Codax, Paolo Marzocchi
Featuring Uli Aigner, Sabeth Buchmann, Aileen Derieg, Elisabeth Plank, Stella Rollig, Georg Schöllhammer
Video presentation with a commentary by film maker Angela Summereder
Saturday, 6 November 2010, 3 pm
€ 3.00 plus admission
LINKS
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
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
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
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
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
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
SCREENING
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
SCREENING
September 14, 2009 / 21 pm - Spazio XYZ
LOCATION
Spazio XYZ
Via Inferiore 31
Treviso, Italy
CIMENA 2.0
We start the next film season with a special upgrade of our cinema night.
CIMENA 2.0 brings you a fresh selection of independent films and live interviews with its creators.
Monday, September 14 at 21.00 we open the season with the award winning film JUST LIKE THE MOVIES by Michal Kosakowski.
Popcorn, beer and a live interview with the film’s director.
Curated by Ries Straver
LINKS
SCREENING
June 25, 2009 / 8 pm - Lothringer 13
LOCATION
Städtische Kunsthalle München
Lothringer 13
Lothringerstr. 13
81667 Munich / Germany
On the occasion of Goran Mimica’s residency in the Villa Waldberta, two movies, “KANNIBALISMUS” and “THE HEART OF IT”, by Michal Kosakowski will be shown in the Gallery for Contemporary Art of the City of Munich.
“For centuries Balkanibal has sat on his throne, in his Peninsula, at the crossroads between East and West, proud, suspicious and stubborn. For centuries he has mutilated himself and demanded respect for these bloody rituals from travelers.
The last time I saw him, his body was a heap of riven flesh and infected wounds. He was sat on the throne, in front of the mirror. His face was covered in deep scars, and, instead of a nose, there was a dark, putrid hole gape. With the stump of one hand he supported the Polaroid camera, and in the palm of the other, fingerless, hand, he held his own balls.” Goran Mimica
LINKS
SCREENING
May 15, 2009 / 5.30 pm - Cinéma 1
LOCATION
Centre Pompidou
Large cinema hall of the Centre Pompidou
Place Georges Pompidou
75004 Paris
The award-winning film “Just Like the Movies” will be shown in the large cinema hall of the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
LINKS
Centre Pompidou - Cinema
Programm “Artention” of North Rhine-Westphalia
Leaflet by the Centre Pompidou (pdf)
SCREENING
8 April 2009 / 8pm - Programa 6: Joven cine experimental alemán
LOCATION
Edificio Sabatini. Salón de Actos
Calle Santa Isabel, 52. Madrid
Entrada: gratuita. Aforo: 140 localidades
The award-winning film “Just Like the Movies” will be shown in the Auditorium of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.
LINKS
Leaflet by the Museo Reina Sofia (pdf)
Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia
OPENING
3 April 2009 / 6pm
LOCATION
Historisches Museum, Minoritenkirche / Dachauplatz 2-4 / Regensburg
Städtische Galerie “Leerer Beutel” / Bertoldstr. 9 / Regensburg
“Der katholische Faktor”
An exhibition on contemporary art from Poland and Germany, curated by Maciek Czapski and Christian Schnurer.
Michal Kosakowski is showing his early filmwork “IS GOD MODERN?” from 1997 in the beautiful space of the Minoritenkirche (church) in Regensburg.
Exhibition: 4 April - 17 May, 2009
Tuesday - Sunday: 10-16
LINKS
OPENING
Saturday, January 10, 2009, 5 – 10 pm
LOCATION
KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e.V.
KW INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Auguststr. 69, 10117 Berlin
Highlights from the Cologne KunstFilmBiennale in Berlin.
Having successfully shown films from the last Cologne KunstFilmBiennale two years ago, KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin is again presenting a selection of highlights from this unique international festival of films by artists. The selection includes films by John Bock, Babette Mangolte, and Sarah Morris, and also new works by a young generation, including Keren Cytter, Nathalie Djurberg, Hans Op de Beeck, Alex McQuilkin, and Markus Schinwald.
KW is also showing a selection of entries to the last BILD-KUNST Promotional Award for experimental film competition featuring films in many genres that are pursuing new experimental form and content.
Highlights from the Cologne KunstFilmBiennale in Berlin is shown at the forth floor at KW.
Participating artists:
Doug Aitken, Shoja Azari, Guy Ben-Ner, John Bock, Daniel Burkhardt, Yasmine Chatila, Keren Cytter, Nathalie Djurberg, Willie Doherty, Ay?e Erkmen, Thorsten Fleisch, Christoph Girardet / Matthias Müller, Anthony Goicolea, Christina von Greve, Florian Gwinner, Jesper Just, Timo Katz / Jan Fuchs, Idris Khan, Michal Kosakowski, Nicolette Krebitz / Jonas Weber Herrera, Clare Langan, Babette Mangolte, Michael Mazière, Sarah Morris, Laurel Nakadate, Hans Op de Beeck, Jean-Gabriel Périot, Alex McQuilkin, Johanna Reich, Pablo Reinoso, Astrid Rieger / Zeljko Vidovic, Julian Rosefeldt, Martin Sastre, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Ingo Schiller / Stephan-Flint Müller, Markus Schinwald, Robert Seidel, John Smith, Hito Steyerl, Javier Téllez, T. J. Wilcox
Presented by Gabriele Horn and Katia Reich
An event by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, supported by the Arts Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Thanks to JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION, Düsseldorf
KunstFilmBiennale is an initiative of the SK Stiftung Kultur, the Arts Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the City of Cologne. It takes place in cooperation with the Filmstiftung NRW and VG Bild-Kunst and is supported with funds of the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Exhibition: January 11 – 25, 2009
LINKS
OPENING
30 January 2009 / 6pm
LOCATION
Landgericht Leipzig / Harkortstr 9 / 04107 Leipzig, Germany
“Das Böse ist ein Eichhörnchen”
At the occasion of the opening of the art group exhibition of the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Klasse Intermedia, Michal Kosakowski presents his movie JUST LIKE THE MOVIES embedded in the space of the Landgericht in Leipzig, Germany.
Exhibition: 1 February - 13 February 2009
Monday - Thursday: 8-17 Friday: 8-14
LINKS
COMPETITION
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Imaginaria Film Festival starts with the demand to partecipate in the process of cinematic language mutations that redefine the iconography of our time.
Imaginaria launches a new experience: to create an ideal connection between the international and independent cinema and the autors and movements of the digital scenarios. An eccentric and unusual journey compared with the national cinematic programme. The meeting between technological innovation and creativity represents today a new perspective where to find movie and shortmovie, film and digital, musicvideoclip, web downloading and videoart installations.
LINK
COMPETITION
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
30 June, 2008, 9.30pm
LOCATION
Cinema Estivo Giardino Pubblico
Trieste/Italy
Maremetraggio – International Short and debut works Film Festival is an annual project (first week of July) of the Maremetraggio Association at its 9th edition will take place in 2008 from June 27 to July 5.
Maremetraggio, has reached its eighth edition in 2007 and shall continue its tireless activity offering to its audience high quality works with a unique pan-European coverage (also through its CEI dedicated section) promoting countries of low capacity production, young professionals and inter-cultural dialogue.
Maremetraggio Section dedicated to shorts that, in the previous year, have won the most important European Festivals. The event’s strong emphasis on European works, will see many national and non-national European short films compete for the final prize of € 10.000,00.
LINKS
PREMIERE
STRASSENMUSIK - NEUE MUSIK?
A new film by Michal Kosakowski
29 May, 2008, 7.10pm
LOCATION
Prinzregententheater
Prinzregentenplatz 12
81576 Munich, Germany
LINKS
COMPETITION
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
15 March, 2008, 8.45pm
LOCATION
Cinema Vittoria - Sala Metropolis
via Cavour, 16
12042, Bra, Italy
LINK
SCREENING
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
15 February, 2008, 8.30pm
LOCATION
Debaliecinema
Amsterdam, Netherlands
LINK
COMPETITION
ALESSANDRO KOKOCINSKI
6 December, 2007 - 8pm
LOCATION
Lothringer 13 - Städtische Kunsthalle München
Lothringerstrasse 13
81369 München, Germany
Mit sensiblen Bildern begleitet der Künstler den Bildhauer beim Finish einer keramischen Arbeit. Detailaufnahmen seiner Skulpturen, ungewöhnliche Perspektiven und überraschende Schnitte machen den dargestellten Künstler und sein Arbeit plastisch spürbar.
LINK
SCREENING
SECTION AIXPERIMENTAL - “CINÉMA REVISITÉ 3″
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
5 December, 2008, 7pm
6 December, 2008, 4.30pm
LOCATION
Ecole d’Art, Aix-En-Provence, France
Revisited cinema… revisit cinema.
Although cinema was sentenced to a slow death, it doesn’t want to die. That is why it has to be transformed, eternally. Salvage, rubbing-out, scratching, colouring, cutting up, sticking, stripes, masks, editing are the weapons of the filmmaker who practices recycling, “poor art whose poetics comes from chance, smuggling and rerouting” (Nicole Brenez). Always working from pre-existent material (film extracts, images or recorded sounds, quotations…), the filmmaker is creating a new autonomous film which has a new meaning. There’s by doing this, a great matter of love for cinema, of will to appropriate images and at the same time to free them and enlighten different concerns : plastic, aesthetic, narrative, political… One has to tear up and to rip up lovingly to bring cinema to life and maintain it alive indefinitely. Found-footage film, re-use film, salvage film, recycled film… whatever it is called, it is the capacity of cinema to think itself and to think the world that is claimed.
LINK
COMPETITION
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
19 November, 8pm
20 November, 5pm
For the twelfth time, Siena will be turning on the spotlights for its International Short Film Festival to be held from 19 to 24 November 2007. A week-long fest of short films with the super International Competition: around the world in seventy films, to enjoy the finest in world production. Running in counterpoint to these competitions, as always, there will be a rich series of retrospectives; beginning with a tribute to one European country which, this year, takes us to Austria. And then, longer journeys to Japan and Brazil, and our African stop, for 2007, is Egypt.
LINKS
COMPETITION
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
The month of November is marked by the return of FIKE 2007 - Évora International Short Film Festival. The Auditorium of the University of Évora will be the centre of the Festival which promises to be the greatest and the most participated ever. From November 16th to 24th, 101 films from the five continents will compete for the Fiction, Animation and Documentary Prizes.
Films and guests from such different countries as Israel and Iran, United Kingdom and Uganda, will fulfill the nights of a week where Cinema will mark the rhythm of Concerts, Workshops and Master Classes. It’s a Culture and Art Festival open to everyone.
LINKS
DATE
Workshop/Lecture with Michal Kosakowski and Paolo Marzocchi
“L’immaginario filmico nella percezione della realtà
Il caso: JUST LIKE THE MOVIES”
13 November, 2007 - 4-6pm
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Live Performance by Paolo Marzocchi
13 November, 2007 - 8.15pm
LOCATION
WORKSHOP/LECTURE
Universita’ degli Studi di Macerata
Aula 8
Piaggia dell’Università, 11
62100 Macerata, Italy
LIVE PERFORMANCE
Cineteatro Italia
Via Gramsci 25
62100 Macerata, Italy
LINKS
Cittateneo - Università degli Studi di Macerata
Università degli Studi di Macerata
Paolo Marzocchi
CONCERT
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Live Performance by Paolo Marzocchi on the piano
11 November, 2007, 5.30pm
LOCATION
Teatro delle Passioni
Viale Carlo Sigonio, 382
41100 Modena - Italy
Anteprima Concerti d’Inverno
Paolo Marzocchi - pianoforte, synthesizer sounds
Michal Kosakowski - videoimages
Music of Mussorgsky, Liszt, Berg and Marzocchi
LINKS
SCREENING
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Live Performance by Paolo Marzocchi on the piano
9+10 November, 2007 - 8.30pm
LOCATION
Teatro Cristallo
Via Dalmazia 30
Bolzano, Italy
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES is a 21-minute video with music by Paolo Marzocchi.
In more than 600 Hollywood movies (produced before 2001) Michal Kosakowski looks for images of what he just saw and finds, in 52 films, the entire sequence of events that happened on that day in September 2001.
Almost all of us saw the events of September 11, 2001 on television. We knew these images from our cinematic experiences and thus found it almost impossible to recognise them as events that actually occurred, and even more difficult to accept them as such in the moment we witnessed them. It was at this early point in time that Michal Kosakowski stepped in: minutes after the event he was sketching out a first draft for his project.
In more than 600 Hollywood movies Michal Kosakowski looks for images of what he just saw and finds, in 52 films, the entire sequence of events that happened on that day in September 2001.
Intimately involved in the project, Paolo Marzocchi is a composer and musician. His perception of the 9/11 events led him a century into the past, right to the early days of cinema. For him it is the style of the silent picture era that sets the tone for Just Like The Movies.
LINKS
Short Film Festival Opere Nuove
Teatro Cristallo
Cineclub Bolzano
WINNER OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON
BEST IN SHOW - JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
This prize was awarded by the jury (Emile Fallaux, former Rotterdam Filmfestival director, Job ter Burg, editor of Paul Verhoevens BlackBook, Ronald Ockhuyzen, filmjournalist, Rosto AD, animator) out of the 96 films that were shown in the festival.
LINKS
SCREENING
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
2 November, 2007 - 8pm
LOCATION
3rd Ward
195 Morgan Avenue
Brooklyn - New York
On Friday, November 2nd, 2007, ChiefMag.com partners with 3rd Ward, Brooklyn’s finest creative facility, for a blow-out evening that includes a silent art auction, film screenings, and a live rock show. Only at 3rd Ward, a 20,000 square-foot creative workspace, would such a multimedia event be possible. ChiefMag.com is Brooklyn’s premiere arts and culture magazine. Having recently celebrated their one-year anniversary, ChiefMag.com has gained popularity for reporting on artists and musicians just before they get big. Chief has established a loyal audience, an ever-growing event mailing list, and write-ups in notable publications.
Chief is known to be on the forefront of cutting-edge nightlife. The cool kids of Brooklyn rely on Chief to host the most fun and exciting event of any evening. The SILENT AUCTION, NOT SO SILENT ROCK SHOW kicks off with an early evening screening of original films including shorts, documentaries, and experimental films by Eugene Mirman, Michal Kosakowski, Nick Chatfield-Taylor, Ries Straver.
The Silent Auction itself will feature 50 works of art by Chief artists, both local and international. Individual works will start at an opening bid of $50. Displayed in the main space throughout the night, the auction also functions as a star-studded group exhibition by renowned and accomplished visual artists, including: Dennis McNett, Matt Furie, Kim Schifino, Mike Houston, Sarah Small, Timothy Archibald, Erik Tidemann, Mike Force, Hope Gangloff, The Mangina, Toilet Town, Leon Reid IV, Nick Chatfield-Taylor and more. And of course, no Chief event comes without a live musical performance!
LINKS
DOWNLOAD
OPENING
30 October - 10 November, 2007
LOCATION
Teatro Cristallo - Sala Mostre
Via Dalmazia 30
Bolzano, Italy
Presentation of the 13 Image Collages of JUST LIKE THE MOVIES embedded in an installation.
LINKS
Short Film Festival Opere Nuove
Teatro Cristallo
Cineclub Bolzano
WINNER - BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC
Just Like the Movies - Music by Paolo Marzocchi
I started to think of the music as a glue for the heterogeneous material of the movie. You should not notice that in one scene it’s raining and it isn’t in the next, or that it’s winter in the early seventies, and few seconds later people are playing chess in Central Park, dressed in a much later style. And, in certain cases, I’d like to preserve in the music the “Hollywood feeling” the film images of the genre.
So I decided to write “silent movie” music, for piano solo. The naked sound of the piano contrasts starkly with the stunning impact of the images, binding them together. There is the “ghost” of Hollywood music atmospheres, as well a clear tribute to the ragtime-based music of the first silent movies. In certain passages, electro-acoustic sounds are added to the acoustic piano notes, and the performer has to interact with them. The electro-acoustic parts are taken from a piece “B1, Study for a Night-Crossing Journey” that I had written earlier, and fit the atmospheres of the film perfectly.
We can also say that our collective journey across the Night started with September 11th.
Paolo Marzocchi 2006
LINKS
Paolo Marzocchi
Sedicicorto Int. Film Festival Forli - Italy
WINNER - SHORT FILMS COMPETITION
Just Like the Movies by Michal Kosakowski, Austria, 2006, DV, 21’
Teatro delle Albe, that with great delight and responsability was the Jury at Milano Film Festival for the section Short Films, is glad to send to the winner the reason of their choices:
“In the chaos produced by the visual bombing of the big media, Just like the movies takes an action towards an ecology of image, giving clarity to a more and more impassive and dogmatic collective mind. The clever editing work, swallowing cinema at every step, crosses over all categories. By taking hold of mainstream movies, Michal Kosakowski points out the prophetic character of cinema itself. Just like the movies makes us aware of the tragedy of reality, and have the vicious circle which entrappers us in the achieved show-business society. The music of Paolo Marzocchi discloses the paradox of a silent movie about modernity.”
LINKS
The movie JUST LIKE THE MOVIES is nominated for the Bild-Kunst Award for experimental film.
Screening
Section CRITICISM OF THE SYSTEM
18 October, 2007 - 3pm
Location
Filmforum of the Museum Ludwig
Bischofsgartenstr. 1
Köln - Germany
The world of images has come into motion. The ever increasing significance of the inter-disciplinary crossing of artistic borders between visual arts and cinema, arthouse movies and art film, museums and cinemas remains as the most important theme of the Cologne KunstFilmBiennale. This worldwide unique mixture of festival and exhibition takes place in Cologne and Bonn from 18th - 24th of October. Once again, short and feature-length films will be shown from and about artists who illustrate the interaction of the visual arts and the “seventh art”, film. With an International Competition compiling numerous premieres and a competition for young filmmakers, both with significant prize money, KunstFilmBiennale offers the latest overview of what is presently taking place cinematically in art and artistically in film.
LINKS
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Section FOCUS ON FOUND FOOTAGE
14 October, 2007 - 5.30pm
18 October, 2007 - 10.30pm
Location
Vooruit - Domzaal
Ghent - Belgium
FOUND FOOTAGE FILM
On the occasion of the lecture on ‘Focus on Found Footage’, the festival programmers have put together a programme with found footage films. For many film makers found footage has been a source of inspiration to knock up a story. The young Jonathan Caouette for example has reconstructed his life in the impressive “Tarnation”. With amateur images and recorded telephone conversations, he has created an extraordinary multimedia magnum opus. Director Peter Delpeut started juggling with images from the Dutch Film Museum, where he worked, to make “The Forbidden Quest”, in which he makes his audience believe in the incredible story about a missing ship. And in “Grizzly Man”, Werner Herzog, the German legendary director, uses the film material of a killed bear lover to establish the border between animal love and insanity. Together with “Capturing The Friedmans”, “Lyrisch Nitraat”, “El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War”, “Welt Spiegel Kino” and the short films “Geschiedenis van de Onbekende soldaat” and “Just Like The Movies” they are part of the History Replayed Found Footage.
LINKS
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
6 October, 2007 - 6.15pm
Location
Cinema Neues Arena
Hans-Sachs-Str. 7
München - Germany
Subway U1/U2 Fraunhoferstraße
Tramway 17, 18, 27 Müllerstraße
The second edition of UNDERDOX - document and experiment, the international film festival for the experimental and artistic film: 36 international productions and 16 artists‘ videos will be presented at the Neues Arena, Werkstattkino and in the showroom of the ZKMax. Again this year will bring you as Munich or German premieres, a large variety of films situated on the borderline between document, experiment and fiction.
LINKS
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
COMPETITION
6 October, 2007 - 10.30am
Location
Camera di Commercio Forli, Sala Zambelli
Piazza Saffi 36
Forli - Italy
LINKS
Opening
11 Sept, 2007 - 8pm
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Live Piano Performance by Paolo Marzocchi
11 Sept 2007 - 9pm
Location
Galery SAKAMOTOcontemporary
Oranienstrasse 164 (Ecke Oranienplatz)
Berlin - Germany
The Galery SAKAMOTOcontemporary opens on September 11th, 2007 with the preview of the award-winning exhibition JUST LIKE THE MOVIES.
For the first time in Berlin the exhibition deals with the events of 9/11.
In more than 600 Hollywood movies (produced before 2001) Michal Kosakowski looks for images of what he just saw and finds, in 52 films, the entire sequence of events that happened on that day in September 2001. His reconstruction begins.
Intimately involved in the project, Paolo Marzocchi is a composer and musician. His perception of the 9/11 events led him a century into the past, right to the early days of cinema. For him it is the style of the silent picture era that sets the tone for Just Like The Movies. A century of image construction by the media collapses in the face of the events of September 11, 2001, in the early 21st century, the beginning of the third millennium AD.
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.
Links
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
8 September, 2007 - 10pm
Location
Placa Pepet Pol
Arbúcies Barcelona - Spain
Our aim with this network is to organize short film screenings in small towns in which it is currently difficult or almost impossible to view these kinds of films. Doing so we want to help unknown film makers to show their films in unconventional places, we want to develop new exhibition markets doing a pedagogical function, to introduce more people into the charms of the short film genre.
In the network, we work individually with each city hall to elaborate a personal short films program in the line of each town’s characteristics. In this occasion we’ve considered one of your films to be projected in the program presented in Arbúcies (Barcelona) on the 8th September 2007.
LINKS
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
24 August, 2007 - 9pm
Location
Boekentoren (Book Tower)
Ghent - Belgium
Viewmaster wants to surprise us each summer with films on special locations. This year they chose the famous “Boekentoren”. The Boekentoren (Book Tower) is a famous building located in Ghent, designed by the Belgian architect Henry Van de Velde. It currently houses 3 million books of the Ghent University library. 11 viewmasters select films, the theme: ‘Toren-tour-tower-turm’. Courtisane compiles short work that will be screened the 24th of august.
LINKS
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
4 August, 2007 - 8pm
Location
Led Art / Art Klinika
Grckoskolska 5
Novi Sad - Serbia
The idea of Michal Kosakowski’s short film Just Like The Movies, shown exclusively in Art Klinika (Novi Sad, Serbia) on July 4 2007, is based on the concept of déjà vu. From the moment I arrived in Art Klinika, half an hour before the screening, I had a feeling that this concept would spread to the whole evening: first, I was warned that few people visit Art Klinika on a Saturday night, regardless of what’s on. Then came a downpour, which delayed the start of the film by 30 minutes in order to give the “determined” the chance to make it, as this short film (21”) would be shown only once. When it became clear that no-one else would come, the screening went ahead for some twenty, I was told, “regular patients”. There was only one more detail missing to complete my feeling of “déjà vu”: in countless cinemas all over the world, when the words THE END appear the river of spectators, led by the sad smokers, gets up and leaves the premises, paying no attention to what’s on the screen, to those names of all the people who have worked on the creation of the film. On Saturday night this reaction did not happen.
The best in Kosakowski’s film is not even the skill with which the director has borrowed footage from Hollywood blockbusters and then pasted it into a mosaic reminding us of the barely visible border between fiction and reality, but the reaction of the audience during the credits. There was the answer to what triggered my feeling of “déjà vu”. I’ve seen this film about 20 times since its premier in Munich two years ago, with audiences varying from 20 to 300 people, but the silence and tension which accompanies the film is common to all audiences. It was the same in Art Klinika. No-one moved, until the screen went blank.
Goran Mimica
LINKS
BORDERLINE MOVING IMAGES 2007
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Live Performance by Paolo Marzocchi
23 June, 2007 - 8pm
Location
Soho Shangdu
Shopping Mall Chaoyang District
Daqiao n. 8
Beijing - China
SPONSOR
Austrian Cultural Forum Beijing
Paolo Marzocchi performs live on the piano. In occasion of the Grand Opening of Borderline Moving Images, starting off with the exhibition “Seduction” in the Beijing Creative art Centre, two performances will be featured as a prelude to the events unfolding in the next few days.
The Gehua Tower building is located in the very heart of Beijing city; siding the 2nd ring road, this is a suggestive intersection where the low-rise centre opens up to the view from the main space and the rooftop in a vast expanding horizon, while on the other the contrasting character of verticality and vibrancy of the city life and hectic pace provides a perfect scenario for a metaphorical communication with its intrinsic nature.
In order to highlight our commitment to this visionary and creative communication with the city texture and its subjective interpretation we are presenting two powerful performative events for the opening night.
While bringing forward the vocational multidisciplinarity of artistic experimentation, we’re presenting two live audio/visual sets that powerfully make use of moving images to construct evocative narratives; while dialoguing with the environment they solicit different ways of interacting with all of its different factors: the landscape, its sounds, the emotional bliss of the life within.
Links
20 YEARS OF THE EUROPEAN MEDIA ART FESTIVAL –
THE FORUM FOR EXPANDED MEDIA IN EUROPE
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Section FINAL CUT
26 April, 2007 - 10.30pm
Location
Cinema Arthouse 4
Erich-Maria-Remarque Ring 16
Osnabrück - Germany
Links
4TH INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL
LISBOA - PORTUGAL
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Section DIRECTORS CUT
21 April, 2007 - 5.45pm
27 April, 2007 - 5.45pm
Location
Cinema Londres 2
Lisboa - Portugal
Links
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
Section ALPHAVILLE UNITED PART II
14 April, 2007 - 5.15pm
Location
Gartenbaukino
Parkring 12
Wien - Austria
Alphaville cordially invites you to its 10-year birthday celebration taking place on April 14th 2007 at the beautiful Gartenbaukino!
Starting at 2:30 pm we will be showing, throughout the day and with no entry fee, films of all sorts, many by established filmmakers and artists who we have come to know and respect, as well as some examples made by our very own Alphavillains, most notably the world premiere of ‘Embrace’ by Lucas ‘Birdman’ Vossoughi at 7.30 pm. Later on in the evening a unique filmic birthday bouquet will be prepared by the Austrian Filmmuseum, including some truly mind-blowing work by Guy Maddin and Bruce Conner and one of the funniest films ever made, Big Business (1929), presented with live piano accompaniment. And, as a midnight surprise, Bernhard Fleischmann will be playing with the screen of the Gartenbau.
And, naturally, there will be music as well….
Starting at around 6pm, there will be numerous musicians and DJs playing in the foyer, starting with soundcollector extraordinaire, Kalle Laar, DJ Tapiresque, quite a few of the Sofa Surfers at around midnight, and most likely ending sometime in the early morning with Christopher Just on the turntables.
No day like this would be complete without a gala premiere and we are pleased to present a unique approach to filmmaking in the form of quite possibly the first true film remix. Director Timo Novotny got ahold of all the footage shot by Michael Glawogger for his famed Megacities project, proceeded to reassemble it, shot his own footage in Tokyo, let the Sofa Surfers write some original music and came up with something all-together new. Somewhere between documentary, music film and experimental work, Life in Loops (A Megacities RMX) has been booked to over 30 festivals and took home the prize for best documentary feature at last years festival in Karlovy Vary.
Links
Exhibition
1 April - 10 June, 2007
Opening
31 March, 2007 - 5pm
Location
Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr in der alten Post
Viktoriaplatz/Platz der ehemaligen Synagoge 1
Mülheim an der Ruhr - Germany
GROUP EXHIBITION
curated by Ines Wiskemann
“Fear on the rise” – “Growing anxiety” – “Living with fear”. Headlines like these bear witness to a growing sense of anxiety that pervades increasingly large segments of society. Despite high standards of security, a level of prosperity that remains high by international comparison and the availability of insurance policies for practically every conceivable risk, a latent, persistent feeling of vulnerability and insecurity appears to have become an essential aspect of contemporary social and personal life.
The exhibition “KAVA KAVA – Facets of Fear” explores the phenomenon of fear from a contemporary, current perspective and presents the positions of twelve international artists in an open arrangement of highly personal perceptual approaches. In addition to questions relating to the origins and atmospheres of fear, the artists also focused on mechanisms of collective and personal anxiety as well as possible means of coping with fear. In a broad spectrum of works and artistic media – from drawing, painting and photography to video and multimedia to sculpture – the participating artists address the theme from different directions, thereby creating a complex exhibition constellation involving interacting threads of discourse. The title of the exhibition, “KAVA KAVA – Facets of Fear”, refers to the kava-kava root, an extract of which is used as a remedy for symptoms of anxiety.
Links
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
COMPETITION
30 March, 2007 - 4pm
Location
Eforie Cinema
2 Eforie St.
Bucharest - Romania
In August 2006, the entire public opinion was shocked at the news that the young filmmaker Cristian Nemescu and his close friend and colleague, the sound-designer and composer Andrei Toncu, died in a car crash. They were both in the prime of their careers, at a point where their works had already created a powerful echo in the world of young filmmakers everywhere, receiving acknowledgement, awards and, most of all, strongly contributing to the long awaited rebirth of Romanian cinema.
NexT is the expression of the need to compensate for this absence. Professionals in cinema, TV and other media, people who were forced to think things over by this painful and brutal event, decided to react firmly, in the only possible way: encouraging and actively supporting the young and very young filmmakers, as well as the aspiring filmmakers, in finding their own way.
As a first act, ”NexT” Cultural Society decided to organize a film festival in Bucharest, from the 29th to the 31st of March 2007.
Links
22ND NEW MEDIA & VIDEO ART FESTIVAL
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
16 March, 2007 - 3.15pm
23 March, 2007 - 4.30pm
27 March, 2007 - 2.30pm
31 March, 2007 - 4.00pm
Links
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
COMPETITION
9 March, 2007 - 10am
Location
Cinema Plevna 5
Tampere - Finland
Tampere 37th International Short Film Festival takes place on March 2007. Again the festival celebrates the art of short film within five bright days and late nights. Previous year 120 festival screenings seduced an audience of almost 30 000 spectators. Besides the International and Finnish Short Film competitions the festival will screen a wide variety of films.
This year the special themes focus on Black Africa, Sami Culture of Northern Scandinavia and Masters of Polish Film Schools. Megapolis programme catches glimpses of giant cities. Special screenings are devoted to the 50th Anniversary of The Finnish Film Archive. The festival will also host seminars, exhibitions, concerts and club nights.
Links
Opening
8 March, 2007 - 7pm
Exhibition
9 March - 29 April, 2007
Location
ZKMax Showroom
Passage Maximilianstrasse / Altstadtring
München - Germany
Exhibition curated by Diana Ebster
MAKING OF THE VIDEO-INSTALLATION FORTYNINE
Discussion between Michal Kosakowski and Prof. Dr. Bernd Scheffer (LMU München)
Links
A TV-Reportage about the exhibition FORTYNINE
at the Lothringer 13, Städtische Kunsthalle München, Germany.
Screening
19 February, 2007 - 10.30pm
Treffpunkt Kultur, ORF 2
LINKS
Opening
15 February 2007 - 7.30pm
Exhibition
16 February - 25 March, 2007
Location
Lothringer 13
Gallery for Contemporary Art of the City of Munich
Lothringerstrasse 13
München - Germany
Exhibition curated by Uli Aigner
Inaugural address by Mark Gisbourne (art critic, London-Berlin)
and Prof. Dr. Bernd Scheffer (LMU München)
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.
The installation FORTYNINE will be first shown in the Städtische Kunsthalle Munich, Lothringer 13, through February and March 2007. Visitors who enter the 5×4x3 metre mirror-walled cube will be confronted by a 49-part HD splitscreen that mirrors their reflections to infinity.
The fact of interpersonal acts of violence, here anchored in present-day aesthetics, is also reflected in the emotions visible on the faces of the visitors, which are equally mirrored to infinity. 49 examples of fictitious killing collide head-on with the real emotions of the installation’s visitors. The collective experience of any emotion generates intimacy – and it is precisely this intimacy that acts as a further constitutive component of FORTYNINE: the confrontation of the individual with itself, in the face of the most atrocious examples of violence.
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. (Uli Aigner, 2007)
LINKS
Lothringer 13 - Städtische Kunsthalle München
36TH ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL
24 January - 4 February 2007
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
25 January 2007 - 10:15 pm - Lantaren 1
27 January 2007 - 2:15 pm - Venster 2
The International Film Festival Rotterdam offers a quality selection of worldwide independent, innovative and experimental cinema and visual arts. Devoted to actively supporting independent filmmaking from around the globe, IFFR is the essential hub in Holland for discovering film talent, for catching premieres, and for exploring its competitions, main sections of recent feature films, short films and documentaries, visual arts exhibitions, theme sections and debates.
During twelve festival days, hundreds of filmmakers and other artists present their work to a large and devoted audience in 24 screening venues located within central Rotterdam. Up to 3,000 press and film industry representatives visit the festival to report and catch the buzz on its premieres or to take part in CineMart, the largest co-production market for film projects. The 36th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam takes place from January 24 up to and including Sunday February 4, 2007. Within the festival, CineMart takes place from January 28 till February 1, 2007.
Links
9. INTERNATIONALES FESTIVAL FÜR STUMMFILM UND MUSIK
BERLIN - DEUTSCHLAND
23-28 JANUARY, 2007
Screening
JUST LIKE THE MOVIES
28 January, 2007 - 11am
Location
Cinema Babylon Berlin-Mitte
Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30
Berlin - Germany
Metro
U2 - Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
TV feature at ARTE - METROPOLIS - 20 January, 2007
Links
Mit Filmen wie „United 93“ ist der 11. September fünf Jahre nach der Katastrophe zum Stoff für Hollywood geworden. Die schrecklichen Ereignisse sind schon viel früher über die Leinwand geflimmert.
Der 11. September 2001 – ein Albtraum. Bilder, die wir sonst nur aus Filmen kannten. Aber schockiert hat uns ja eigentlich nur die Tatsache, dass plötzlich alles real war! Im Kino hätte uns so was nicht umgehauen! Der Kurzfilm „Just like the movies“ besteht nur aus Szenen aus Katastrophen-Blockbustern. Aneinander geschnitten entsteht so der Tag des Anschlags. Die Bilder aus Armageddon, Godzilla oder Deep Impact bekommen, nach dem 11. September, eine völlig neue, eine prophetische Bedeutung.
Für den Regisseur von „Just like the movies“ Michal Kosakowski, sind Videotheken fast so was wie sein Wohnzimmer. Seit seinem 14. Lebensjahr macht er Filme und kennt alles, was Hollywood jemals auf die Leinwand gebracht hat. Sein Geld verdient er mit Werbefilmen – doch manchmal ist auch Zeit für Kunstprojekte wie „Just like the movies“. Wie viele andere, hatte auch er am 11. September ein Deja Vu. Kosakowski sichtete über 600 Katastrophenfilme, um in seinem Film dem Grauen des 11. September möglichst nahe zu kommen. Im April war Premiere von „Just like the movies“ in München. In einer begleitenden Ausstellung hat Kosakowski die Bilder gegenübergestellt, bei denen die Ähnlichkeit zwischen Realität und Fiktion besonders deutlich wird. Er liefert damit den Beweis: Hollywood wurde von der Realität eingeholt. Die Ähnlichkeiten sind schockierend.
Man hört keine Boom Effekte, keine Schreie oder Explosionen. Stattdessen verbindet Stummfilmmusik die ganzen Filmschnipsel. Für Kosakowski ist diese Art der Musik der Link zum Thema Wahrnehmung von Fernseh- und Kinobildern. Kosakowski zeigt auch Abläufe der Katastrophe, die wir so nicht sehen konnten. Sein Film bündelt die Visionen der Filmemacher aus der Traumfabrik.
Links
