Mondo Lux - Die Bilderwelten des Werner Schroeter

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Werner Schroeter was one of the most significant proponents of New German Cinema. Schroeter was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. At the time, he was working for the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf gallery on a musical piece entitled ‘Schönheit der Schatten’ (The Beauty of Shadows) based on the works of Robert Schumann and Heinrich Heine. For Schroeter, oscillating between hope and trepidation, it marked the beginning of a race against time.
In her film, Elfi Mikesch, who photographed a number of Schroeter’s films and who collaborated closely with him to create his vision, provides us with an intimate insight into Schroeter’s artistic output during the remaining four years of his life.
MONDO LUX portrays Schroeter full of creative energy and enthusiasm for the cinema, theatre and photography. We observe him at rehearsals for ‘Antigone/Elektra’; preparing the photographic exhibition ‘Autrefois & Toujours’ and working intensively on the dubbed version of his last film, DIESE NACHT, which was shot in Portugal in 2008.
Copious excerpts from Schroeter’s films, ranging from EIKA KATAPPA (1969) to DIESE NACHT (2009), reflect the colourful spectrum of his oeuvre, inscribed in a retrospective view that is pervaded by music. The film also illuminates biographical connections and enshrines the passionate bond that Schroeter felt towards film, opera and theatre, but also towards his friends, the people with whom he lived and worked.
Schroeter was an artist propelled by Eros and by passion, a man who felt the proximity of both beauty and death. MONDO LUX constitutes an intimate space – a space in which, in view of the time the protagonist has left to live, every day becomes quite unlike any other.
Werner Schroeter died on 12 April, 2010.
He was honored with the SPECIAL TEDDY AWARD in February 2010 for his life achievement.
The statement of the TEDDY Foundation:
Werner Schroeter, the radical experimentalist and great maverick of New German Film, has been awarded with this years´ SPECIAL TEDDY, because he is to be counted among the likes of Fassbinder, Herzog or Wenders as one of the most important players in the emerging Young German Cinema and he is one of the greats of the gay culture in its early emancipation movement of postwar-Germany. He reimported pieces of European culture, opera and dealings with big emotions from the USA. Werner Schroeter thinks in opera and is therefore able to illustrate the desires of people and present pictures, who are understood by heart. The pictures made by Werner Schroeter are likewise aesthetical revolution and emotional inspiration, whose denotation is beyond words.

details

  • Runtime

    93 min
  • Country

    Germany
  • Year of Presentation

    2011
  • Year of Production

    2011
  • Director

    Elfi Mikesch
  • Cast

    Werner Schroeter, Anne Ratte-Polle, Almut Zilcher, Pascale Schiller, Dörte Lyssewski, Isabelle Huppert, Rosa von Praunheim, Monika Keppler, Wim Wenders, Alberte Barsacq, Peter Kern, Ingrid Caven, Wolf Wondratschek, Paulo Branco, Digne Meller Marcovicz, Juliane Lorenz, Christian Holzfuß, Heikko Deutschmann, Rufus Beck, Alexis Bug, Julia Kamenik, Alexandra Kunz, Lisa-Marie Landgraf, Roland Techet, Oleg Zhukov
  • Production Company

    Filmgalerie 451
  • Berlinale Section

    Panorama
  • Berlinale Category

    Documentary Film

Biography Elfi Mikesch

Born in Judenburg, Austria, in 1940, after training as a photographer she moved to Berlin in 1964. She works as a photographer, director of photography and director, and since 1976 has been making her own feature and documentary films. As director of photography she has worked with renowned directors such as Werner Schroeter, Rosa von Praunheim, Monika Treut and Harald Bergmann. She has been a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts in the film and media art section since 1991.

Filmography Elfi Mikesch

1978 Ich denke oft an Hawaii | 1980 Was soll’n wir denn machen ohne den Tod | 1982 Macumba | 1985 Verführung: Die grausame Frau | 1989 Marocain | 1997 Verrückt bleiben, verliebt bleiben | 2000 Die Markus Family | 2011 Mondo Lux – The world of images of Werner Schroeter | 2014 Fieber

Biography Rosa von Praunheim

Born in Riga, in 1942. He studied at the University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main and at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1967, von Praunheim directed his first short films. He made his cinema breakthrough in 1971 with the documentary Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt.

Biography Peter Kern

Born in Vienna, Austria in 1949, he was a choirboy and stage actor and began working with Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1973. In 1978 he won a German Film Award for his performances in HITLER – A FILM FROM GERMANY and FLAMING HEARTS. He directed his first feature film, CRAZY BOYS, in 1986, and has appeared in films by Werner Schroeter, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Christoph Schlingensief among others. FIFTYFIFTY screened in the Berlinale’s Short Film Competition in 2001 and BELIEF, LOVE, DEATH in the Panorama in 2012.