The Cave of Hercules
1990 | 44 min | Icons & Media Art
The story of Hercules is well-known: son of Zeus and Alcmene, hero and god, famous for his twelve labours.
Cornelia Schleime
ActorCornelia Schleime is a German artist, primarily known for her contributions to painting and performance art rather than mainstream acting or directing. Born on July 4, 1953, in East Berlin, Schleime began her career in the GDR as an avant-garde artist, often facing restrictions due to the political climate. After moving to West Germany in 1984, her work gained more visibility and acclaim. She received the Gabriele Münter Prize for women artists over 40 in 2003. As for films, she is not known for a significant career in acting or directing.
Films
The painter of the strange country …
1988 | 42 min | Icons & Media Art
A portrait of the artists Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling and Hans Scheib who left the GDR for West Berlin between 1984 and 1985.
Recommended for you
The painter of the strange country …
1988 | 42 min | Icons & Media Art
Three artists who moved from East Germany to West Berlin in the mid-1980s are the focus of this documentary. Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling and Hans Scheib were part of the alternative art scene in East Germany and resisted state dictates. But what did the change to a new social system mean for their artistic identity? How did their strategies and perspectives change in the West, where market mechanisms and a different culture of self-staging suddenly prevailed? In THE PAINTER CAME FROM ...
GDR Experimental: Metamorphosis 1
1978 | 6 min | Icons & Media Art
In 1976, Lutz Dammbeck and five Leipzig artists conceived the interdisciplinary exhibition “Tangente I”, which was intended to serve as a platform for experimental art forms in the GDR. The focus was on collaborative works combining various media such as painting, film and installation. However, before the exhibition could be realized, it was banned by the authorities in 1977 – a typical fate for avant-garde art in the GDR that operated outside the state-regulated framework. Dammbeck did not let ...
The Netz: SEEK II
2009 | 29 min | Icons & Media Art
While doing research for his film THE NET, Lutz Dammbeck came across the groundbreaking exhibition “Software – Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art”, which took place at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1970. Curated by Jack Burnham, this exhibition presented the symbiosis of conceptual and media art with what were then new technologies developed for the American military. One of the central exhibits was the installation Seek by the Architecture Machine Group of the Massachusetts Institute ...
GDR Experimental: First Leipzig Autumn Salon
2006 | 22 min | Icons & Media Art
In 1984, the artists Lutz Dammbeck, Günter Firit, Hans Hendrik Grimmling, Frieder Heinze, Günter Huniat and Olaf Wegewitz occupied a trade fair building in the center of Leipzig to stage one of the first independent and public exhibitions in the GDR – the 1st LEIPZIGER HERBSTSALON. The event was an act of resistance against the GDR's system of state control and a creative form of self-assertion. The artists defied the restrictive guidelines of cultural policy and created an autonomous space for avant-garde, ...
Die Legende vom Nil
1991 | 58 min | Biography
The painter and graphic artist Paul Klee (1879-1940) is said to have had a lifelong fascination with North Africa. After his formative trip to Tunis in 1914, he returned to North Africa in 1928. Egypt impressed him with its light, its landscape and its epochal monuments. The influence of this trip was already evident in the 1929 oil painting Necropolis. Filmmaker and author Rüdiger Sünner uses his diary entries to follow the artist's footsteps through colorful bazaars, mysterious colonnades and ...
Soulscapes: Spiritual Places in Germany
2025 | 111 min | Documentary
Places with a deep spiritual past can be found all over Germany – from Neolithic cult sites to Celtic and Germanic shrines to the sources of inspiration for great thinkers and artists. These landscapes tell stories of mystics, romantics and wisdom teachers who have left their mark here. Whether in the Harz Mountains, in the Odenwald, on the banks of the Rhine or on the island of Rügen – these places invite you to connect with the spiritual history of the country. Director Rüdiger Sünner explores ...
GDR Experimental: Homage to La Sarraz
1981 | 12 min | Icons & Media Art
In September 1929, a group of visionary filmmakers gathered at La Sarraz Castle in Switzerland to discuss alternatives to commercial cinema. The participants, including Sergei Eisenstein, Hans Richter, Walter Ruttmann and Luis Buñuel, want to explore new ways of independent filmmaking and challenge the bourgeois narrative film. Lutz Dammbeck takes up this historic meeting and pays artistic tribute to it with DDR-EXPERIMENTAL: HOMMAGE À LA SARRAZ. The film combines documentary elements with experimental ...
Duke Ernest
1993 | 43 min | Animation
Duke Ernst is robbed of his castle as a result of a conspiracy and sent on the first crusade as penance. His journey takes him far beyond known borders into a world full of wonders and dangers. Accompanied by brave knights, he crosses the sea to reach the Orient, where he encounters numerous mythical creatures in his search for the legendary carbuncle: the one-legged Sciopods, the winged Ariasperns, the tiny Pygmies and the enigmatic birds Roch. During his adventures, he finds unexpected allies ...
Soulscapes: Spiritual Places in England and Wales
2022 | 53 min | Documentary
The British Isles hold an almost inexhaustible wealth of "sacred places of worship." Dolmens, stone circles, sacred springs, hermitages, caves, ancient cemeteries and church ruins bear witness to thousands of years of European spirituality, ranging from the Megalithic period and the Celts to the legends of King Arthur and the "Holy Grail" as well as evidence of early medieval Celtic Christianity. In a personal journey, filmmaker Rüdiger Sünner goes to selected locations in Cornwall, Wales and England ...
GDR Experimental: Heracles
1984 | 10 min | Icons & Media Art
Lutz Dammbeck experiments with the boundaries between film, performance and media art. In the early 1980s, he works with dancer Fine Kwiatkowski to develop elements for his planned media collages – a central element of his “Herakles Concept”. This multi-layered project explores myths and political systems and their impact on society. In 1984, Dammbeck moved into an independent art space on Sredzkistraße in East Berlin, which was run by art historian Eugen Blume and artists such as Hans Scheib and ...