Super 8 is in the air this year for us, with two outstanding Berlin woman filmmakers visiting the Goethe-Institut Toronto.First off, the 8 fest --a unique festival for all forms of small-gauge film that is in its 5th year-- co-presents with us a solo program by Milena Gierke at the end of January. The program of 15 silent shorts, with the filmmaker present to discuss, ranges from the early 90s to today and takes us from Berlin to Marseille to New York to “a place. somewhere.” (in the two-minute film N 44° 3' 24. 67'' / E 3° 42' 37.015''). About her films the prolific filmmaker says: “What interests me about making films is the inherent possibility of observing reality through the camera‘s lens, using technical means to capture my personal perspective. I am strongly attracted to the unique visual qualities of everyday existence... Some of this is perceptible only by looking through the camera, and invisible to the naked eye.”
An active filmmaker in Berlin’s vibrant experimental film scene, Gierke has exclusively been working in Super 8 since 1990. Along with Ute Aurand and Renate Sami she founded the curatorial collective Filmsamstag (Film Saturday) that, from 2000-2007, was one of Berlin’s most dynamic alternative screening venues. Since studying at Frankfurt’s Städelschule and New York’s Cooper Union in New York City, she has presented at venues including the Berlinale, the Arsenal, Aurora Film Festival (Norwich, UK), and Universiteit van Amsterdam and served on the Jury of 2009’s 25FPS International Experimental Film+Video Festival in Zagreb, Croatia.
All of her films are edited in the camera, “in the process of deliberately deciding to shoot something, and I do not edit after the fact…I try to use the qualities of the material as an advantage, working in as concentrated a manner as possible, composing in ‘real time’ as something is happening.”
Milena Gierke at the 8 fest:
Solo Film Program: January 27, 2012, 7pm
Trash Palace Cinema, 89-B Niagara Street, Toronto, ON
$5 admission (Festival Pass $25 for 8 programs from January 27-29!)
Artist Talk: January 28, 2012, 4pm
Goethe-Institut Toronto, 100 University Ave, 2nd Floor, Toronto, ON
Free admission
Later in the spring, the Goethe-Institut Toronto will team up with LIFT for our inaugural Goethe-Lift Film Residency with Dagie Brundert, also out of the “Berlin School” of super 8ers. Brundert, who describes her profession as “on the road, making films“, will engage in workshops, community collaborations and production – and present her often quirky and humorous body of work, which is quite different than that of Gierke while sharing a subjective and emotional point of departure.
You can see some of her work on her vimeo channel. Stay tuned!
by Jutta Brendemühl, Goethe-Institut Toronto
