Operai, Contadini, Cineasti … 

Observations of the work of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub

“You have to make very specific films, for very specific languages, in very specific places, for very specific places, for very specific questions,” wrote Huillet and Straub in 2001. The certainty with which the two selected historical text material, looked for locations and situations, developed specific ways of speaking with amateur actors and always sought constructive forms of discussion with everyone involved, has had a lasting impact on many who came into contact with their work. A number of facsimiles, photos and the films ›6 Bagatelas‹ by Pedro Costa and ›Look at this mountain, once it was fire‹ by Harald Bergmann are shown from an abundance of working materials and the diverse artistic discussions of third parties with the work of Huillet and Straub.

6 Bagatelas
Pedro Costa, POR/F 2001, 18 min, OmeU

Six takes were not included in Pedro Costa’s feature film ›Où gît votre sourire enfoui?‹, in which he observed Huillet and Straub completing their film ›Sicilia!‹. Described as ‘trifles’, they give an insight into a way of working and living in which the small and the minor always communicates with the large and essential. Repairing and folding laundry, one understands, is in no way in contradiction to stimulated critical debates about socialist utopias and capitalist film production.

Schaut Euch diesen Berg an, einstmals war er Feuer
Harald Bergmann, D 1991, 61 min, OmeU

Scenes from an editing workshop with Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub at HFBK Hamburg (1987) from which emerged the “Hamburg edit” of The Death of Empedocles, cross-cut with takes from the vicinity of Mont Sainte-Victoire near Aix-en-Provence.

Presented by the friends of the documentary film week