12: Mieriën Coppens, Guy Sherwin, Johan van der Keuken, Jürgen Böttcher, Jim Jennings, Charles Burnett, Bruce Baillie
In the presence of Mieriën Coppens.
Courtisane is een platform voor film en audiovisuele kunsten. In de vorm van een jaarlijks festival, filmvertoningen, gesprekken en publicaties onderzoeken we de relaties tussen beeld en wereld, esthetiek en politiek, experiment en engagement.
Courtisane is a platform for film and audiovisual arts. Through a yearly festival, film screenings, talks and publications, we research the relations between image and world, aesthetics and politics, experiment and engagement.
In the presence of Mieriën Coppens.
A slow-dripping tap disturbs the reflection of clouds seen through the window.
Individuals wait, silence is heard, a microscopic attention through a tired mass. If the film is almost mute, it is because it focuses on silent figures, although their struggle is deafening.
A cinematographic essay about the housing shortage in Amsterdam in the mid-sixties. The film makes a visual connection between physical and mental space. Van der Keuken: “With the camera, I can only show a house hunter’s outside, but what matters is his inside, how life inside him is decaying like a pile of rotten lettuce.”
Dutch with English subtitles
Experienced shunters working at the Dresden- Friedrichstadt goods yard. In all weathers, day and night, they couple and uncouple the wagons. The air is full of sound: hammering, steps crunching on the gravel, whistles and shunting noises.
German with English subtitles
Migrants in the silver rush. Elevated, riding the rails, caught by a sympathetic but prohibited camera, thrown together, bouncing from borough to borough, taking the curves.
Fake left.
Run right.
Pass.
There are no messages here.
So we may breathe.
Run.
Dribble.
Jump.
We are carefully playing the game
The body has always wanted a life of its own
Most days, you’ll find me here.
Charles Burnett’s first 16mm student film, Several Friends, showcases his early facility with a documentary approach to fiction, his ability to draw out eccentric and endearing characterizations from an ensemble of nonprofessional actors, and his sensitivity to the expressive possibilities of everyday, working class props and locations. (Doug Cummings)
“A modern favorite! The film is very brief: it uses the soundtrack of a scratched, old Ella Fitzgerald vinyl recording with the foregoing title, and lasts only as long as it takes to play the record. A mere written description of the work might appear banal: a picket fence paralleling an ancient wooden sewage pipe among cascading, wild red roses—and finally a few telephone wires against the sky. Yet the result is to take an aspect of reality, sift it through the creative Mind, and produce a singular, joyous event!” – B.B.