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Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

ActorDirector
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, born in Nossendorf in 1935, is a German filmmaker known for his experimental and often monumental works. His cinematic work intensively explores German history, culture, and mythology, often using theatrical devices such as puppetry and projections. His internationally acclaimed oeuvre includes the so-called "German Trilogy," which comprises the films *Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King* (1972), *Karl May* (1974), and the seven-and-a-half-hour work *Hitler: A Film from Germany* (1977). His film adaptation *Parsifal* was screened at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. For his directorial work, Syberberg has been honored with accolades including the German Film Award.

Films

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Demmin Cantos - Part 1

Demmin Cantos - Part 1

2023 | 105 min | Documentary

In the first part of this film series, a place in northeastern Germany becomes the stage for a cinematic exploration of history, memory, and the present. In Demmin, a town that gained sad notoriety in 1945 due to a mass suicide, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg searches for forms of collective memory. Hans Jürgen Syberberg's latest work, released after a creative hiatus of almost 30 years, is an examination in words and images of the town of Demmin, where he grew up as a child. The film refers to the history ...

Age of the Gods

Age of the Gods

1993 | 92 min | Documentary

How does art influence politics – and how much does politics influence art? This question is particularly pressing in the case of Arno Breker, a sculptor whose works played a central role in National Socialism. Breker was Adolf Hitler's official state artist and created monumental sculptures that embodied the ideal of National Socialist aesthetics. Between 1936 and 1945, Arno Breker worked almost exclusively for the architect Albert Speer and his plans for the redesign of Berlin into the “world ...

You will never understand

You will never understand

2003 | 52 min | Documentary

Anja Salomonowitz portrays three women from her family who as children lived through WWII but whose memories of that time diverge. They were on different sides and belong to different memory collectives: Hanka Jassy, her great-aunt, survived Auschwitz. Gertrude Rogenhofer, her nanny, was a socialist and supported her uncle in the resistance. Margit Kohlhauser, her grandmother, lived in Graz during the war. She did there what most did: nothing. "The film succeeds in providing undisguised and intimate ...

Pornografia

Pornografia

2003 | 117 min | Drama

Leaving occupied Varsovia in 1943, the two intellectuals, Frederic and Witold, take refuge in the country mansion of an old friend. The girl of the house, Henia (16 years old), is promised in marriage to an attorney Waclaw (30 years old) from a nearby town. However, Henia's childhood friend Karol also lives at the estate works the farm. Frederic and Witold decide to break the arranged wedding and bring the two youngsters together. John Updike described Gombrowicz's book as being the "Dangerous ...

Come And Play

Come And Play

2013 | 31 min | Drama

Russian-German boy Grisha fools around with a wooden toy gun. The longer he plays, the deeper he is pulled into an altered reality. The boundaries between the past and the present, the real and the surreal, blur. Images from bygone Berlin appear; streets and buildings still carry the memories of war. Suddenly, he is caught in a nightmare of another lifetime, nightmare that is still present today. "This short film successfully shows how much the horror of WWII is still present in the discourse ...

Tlatelolco

Tlatelolco

2011 | 75 min | Documentary

Lotte Schreiber's documentary illuminates the history of Mexico City by looking at a housing complex in the capital – an epicenter of Mexican cultural history. The Nonoalco Tlatelolco housing complex at the Plaza de las tres Culturas in Mexico City is a vertical city built by modernist architect Mario Pani in the early 1960s as a modern utopia for 72,000 inhabitants. As early as 1521, the Aztecs faced off against the Spanish conquerors at this site. Bloody student protests followed in 1968 and ...

Just a Friday

Just a Friday

2022 | 26 min | Drama

After a harrowing escape from the front line, 15-year-old Hans Jokisch and his family return to their village in Silesia. But their beloved home is occupied - by the Schöppe family. They have no choice but to share the house from now on. Over time, the Jokisch house also becomes a home for the Schöppe family and Hans befriends the young Bruno Schöppe. But when Germany surrenders in 1945 and Silesia now belongs to Poland, both families suddenly are forced to flee the house and leave all their possessions ...

Vera Lossau - What I See

Vera Lossau - What I See

2012 | 65 min | Documentary

A documentary about the Düsseldorf artist Vera Lossau. How does an artistic idea develop and how is it translated into a work of art? Wolfgang Waldmann accompanies the artist for a year and portrays her creative process in a video diary. The creativity of the artist is under pressure: expectations and the growing dictatorship of art market rules are beginning to threaten her work. Vera Lossau addresses these conflicts and finds ways to integrate them into her artistic process. The Cologne composer ...

Der Stoff, aus dem Träume sind

Der Stoff, aus dem Träume sind

2019 | 76 min | Documentary

What inspires people to take the initiative and organize communal living for themselves? What ideals drive them and how does the financing work? On the basis of six self-managed residential buildings in Austria from 40 years, this documentary sets out to find answers. The pioneers of the cooperative living project in Graz-Raaba talk about their experimental ideals of the 1960s and about growing old in community. The most recent buildings, the housing project Vienna Nordbahnhof and the project willy*fred ...

Brunaupark

Brunaupark

2024 | 92 min | Documentary

BRUNAUPARK opens in a Zurich housing estate with five residential blocks, 405 apartments and around 800 residents, all living under the threat of demolition. The Credit Suisse pension fund plans to replace the site with a new development, and 239 households receive eviction notices, turning everyday life into a prolonged state of uncertainty. Over the course of three years, Felix Hergert and Dominik Zietlow observe a community in transition. Some residents move away, others challenge the evictions ...