Ute Aurand: 01

31 March, 2017 - 16:15
Sphinx cinema

Ute Aurand has been a central figure of Berlin’s experimental film scene since the 1980s and is one the most significant filmmakers active in the diary and portrait tradition today. In making her 16mm portraits, she often films her subjects over many years, thereby stressing the inseparability between living and filming for the avant-garde filmmaker. Aurand’s work celebrates the here and now, the people she meets, the places she visits, the very fact of being alive. Hers is an honest, energetic and vibrant cinema, one in which joy can even be found in sadness. “The diaristic form develops out of an inner dialogue with my surroundings, a silent visual conversation. The source of inspiration is daily life, the fountain which never stops and offers itself to everyone. It is a great joy and challenge to transform my inner dialogue into film.” Her films propose a courageous filmmaking which is as radical as it is poetic.

Rather than providing a comprehensive retrospective of Aurand’s work, these 3 Artist in Focus programs offer insight into key motifs of her practice, with an emphasis on films made during the past 10 years. 

In the presence of Ute Aurand.

Half Moon for Margaret

Ute Aurand
,
DE
,
2004
,
16mm
,
colour
,
18'

“Glimpses of my life. Friends, snow, two tulips, skaters on the frozen lake of my childhood, balloons in the morning sun, my godchild Paulina running up and down the hill, Ulrike’s 50th birthday on the Baltic Sea, my desk in November 2003. I collect these moments, mostly edited in the camera while filming and later joined together in a new order. Each retains the immediacy of a  first impression, one next to the other.” (Ute Aurand)

Der Schmetterling im Winter (Butterfly in Winter)

Ute Aurand & Maria Lang
,
DE
,
2006
,
16mm
,
colour
,
29'

“Ute Aurand films Maria Lang in her daily activity as she cares for her mother. The presence of the filmmaker is visible in the camera movements and in the editing rhythm. Admiration and discretion are sensed. We enter into the intimacy of mother and daughter through the eyes of a friend. The silent images create an occasion for attentive observation and balanced awareness.”(Robert Beavers)

A Walk / Im Park / ZUOZ

Ute Aurand
,
DE
,
2008
,
16mm
,
colour
,
12'

“A triptych of three short silent films. A walk through the winter of Engadin and Bergell, scenes in the park of the Rietberg Museum in Zürich with its collection of Asian, African and Indian art, and an ice-skater on a sunny day in Zuoz, a village in the Engadin.” (Ute Aurand)

Kopfüber im Geäst (Hanging Upside Down in the Branches)

Ute Aurand
,
DE
,
2009
,
16mm
,
b&w
,
15'

“A montage of brief recollections filmed in the years before the death of my mother in 2000 and the death of my father in 2007. I stand as an adult in the midst of childhood feelings, gazing at the disappearance of my family home and the changing relation to my parents.” (Ute Aurand)