Yes, I haven’t een blogging. I haven’t even a good excuse. Absence of unique excitement, though presence of multiple small excitements – none of which alone are enough to write about.
Christian sent some photos. He is in South America somewhere, possibly in Patagonia, or Tierra del Fuego. Vircarious excitement for me in the photographs from friends.
One of the first freelance jobs I got in Berlin was salvaging a website for Christian Ender. Over the past three years, I’ve looked after imdialog, taken care of two other sites for Christian, and he has become one of my good friends here. A couple of weeks ago he called me and explained he was being awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz for his work that these websites document over the past years.
Last Friday, he was awarded the medal by the Staatssekretär, and following that, a long lunch and many drinks with a large group of friends and family.
I am very happy for Christian to have all his work recognised — for Werner Bab and “Zeitabschnitte”, for Gunter Kroemer and “Bedrohtevölker” — and for him to receive the recognition he is due.
And at the end of the month, he departs for South America with a camera.
The last day screening, Dasniya and I climbed the stairs of Hackesche Höfe Kino for 90 more minutes of the inescapable Parsifal. Die Singende Stadt, an un-narrated documentary of the making of an opera, here being in Stuttgart, the opera of course Parsifal, and as far from Roméo Castellucci as possible, the director is Calixto Bieito. Between the two Parsifals is Parsifal, Andrew Richards is this role in both.
Early tomorrow we shall find ourselves south-westwards going, to Stuttgart to see just this. Flamethrowers, apocalypse, suppurating goiters, a very scary Klingsor who beats young boys as angels as swans, the swan Parsifal downs, and of course Parsifal himself. Erlöser?
One of the first sites I did as a freelancer was porting imdialog-ev.org from a dead cms into WordPress for photographer and documentary maker (and philosopher) Christian Ender. Imdialog! is a documentary project on Werner Bab, a Berliner Jew who was sent to Auschwitz in 1942. He survived there, as well as Mauthausen and Ebensee, to return to Berlin after the war.
Christian documented Werner’s journey through the camps in Zeitabschnitte des Werner Bab, which has been shown across Germany in schools and around the world accompanied by Werner, who would speak on his experiences.
Werner died on 31st July, aged 86.
DEUTSCH
In den Abendstunden des 31. Juli 2010 ist Werner Bab plötzlich und unerwartet friedlich eingeschlafen, wenige Wochen vor seinem 86. Geburtstag.
Die letzten fünf Jahren engagierte sich Werner Bab unermüdlich und warb für Demokratie, Toleranz und Völkerverständigung.
Mit seiner lebensbejahenden und positiven Einstellung stand er in über 150 Gesprächen vor über 20.000 Schülern als Zeitzeuge zur Verfügung.
Offen beantwortete Werner Bab die gestellten Fragen zu seinen Erlebnissen als Häftling in den Konzentrationslagern Auschwitz, Mauthausen und Ebensee, um vor den Folgen totalitärer Regime zu warnen.
Um dieses Engagement zu unterstützen wurde der Verein „imdialog!e.V.“ gegründet, welcher nun aufgelöst wird.
Diese Internetseite, das hier bereitgestellte Gäste- und Gedenkbuch sowie die in 19 Sprachen untertitelte Dokumentation „Zeitabschnitte des Werner Bab“ werden in Erinnerung an Werner Babs Wirken weiter aufrechterhalten.
In stiller Trauer,
Christian Ender
Im August 2010
ENGLISH
On the evening of July 31, 2010, Werner Bab passed away peacefully. His death was sudden and unexpected, just a few weeks before his 86th birthday.
During the past five years, Werner Bab worked tirelessly toward democracy, tolerance and international understanding.
With his optimistic and positive attitude to life, he shared his experiences of the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Ebensee, answering questions from more than 20,000 students in over 150 discussions. His aim was to warn people of the consequences of a totalitarian regime.
In order to support this endeavour, the “imdialog!e.V.” association was founded, which has now been dissolved.
The Internet site www.imdialog-ev.org as well as the guest and remembrance book will continue to be maintained to honour the memory of Werner Bab and his achievements.
On this site, one may also request free of charge the complete documentary “Zeitabschnitte des Werner Bab” (“Time Intervals of Werner Bab”). This documentary has been subtitled in 19 languages.
In deepest sympathy,
Christian Ender
August, 2010
Over much of this year I’ve been working with Christian Ender on rebuilding the code of one of his documentary sites, imdialog-ev, and in the process have been doing some basic editing and for another, Bedrohte Völker Amazoniens.
The exhibition documents the Nadëb-Makú Indians in the Amazon basin and Padre Gunter Kroemer, co-founder of CIMI (Conselho Indigenista Missionário) who has been for nearly forty years an advocate for the rights of the indigenous peoples in the region.
Padre Kroemer died on Wednesday of a pulmonary infection, in Rio Grande do Sul.
My last full day in Berlin, an afternoon adventure with someone who takes rather splendid photographs herself of derelict amusement parks and summer berries… to Pottsdam, and a vast gallery pockmarked occasionally with bullets and shrapnel from the war. gute aussichten – junge deutsche fotografie was mostly quite engaging, some beautiful photography by recent graduates who understand what they are doing and have an artistic sensibility. I returned to the photos of Kazakhstan peasants because, well… it is Kazakhstan. The sheen of metallic playground toys in sepulchral gloom also. A documentary essay of a hotel or guesthouse in former East Germany, near Leibniz I think was well partial to my taste for decay.
But innerwald, a series in the Tropenhaus in the Zoologisches Museum, Bauernhof by ___ oh such a delight. I wanted to lick and scratch the dirty, warm glass, smear the moist dirt a little, humidity and fecund growth, then trace with my eyes for a long time the trails of what unknown sliding, perambulating creatures, threads like unravelled cells. And the monstrous shadows, an ogre looming over a bed of hay, a clutch of twigs caught mid-startled shock in the light, geraniums that seem most unfriendly, the penumbra of a bison’s fur and horn.
Certainly to visit Berlin’s Zoological Gardens upon my return.
A late night swirling Pernod with Bonnie at Orange and an early trip to the shops for Sunday fruit, now on with the important task of keeping you entertained.
Jean Baudrillard. Jean Baudrillard. Jean Baudrillard.
One film I never did manage to find in Guangzhou, despite being banned for decades was Michelangelo Antonioni’s Chung Kuo – Cina. Zhou Enlai and others were hoping for an ode to the marvelousness of the Cultural Revolution and communist China, what they got was not what they wanted. As for the four hour documentary now, The 88s tell all about it.
A Fifty year long provincial border war in China that only reached ceasefire a couple of years ago, Nationalist and Communist maps, enclaves, exclaves, and internal border adjustments that were only made legally binding in 2002. Mutant Palm has the cartography and the translation of 微山湖畔边界械斗50年 The Fifty Year War on the Banks of Weishan Lake.
“If Guangzhou’s problem with street crime makes southern China seem a dangerous place … denizens of the province of Guangdong were less worried about the odd mugging or bag snatching than they were about rampant banditry or pillaging rebel armies.” I thought it was Feng37 blogging about media reports of what a scary place Guangzhou is, especially with all those Fulan migrant workers. Actually it’s about the 开平碉楼 watchtowers in Kaiping that are on the verge of UNESCO World Heritage listing.
Uncoy one of my favourite dance/art/european blogs who has provided almost nightly coverage of ImPulsTanz in the past looks at the NYT review of Forsythe Company’s Three Atmospheric Studies, Joni Mitchell and political dance and thanks Bush and Cheney for making dance relevant again.
That’s enough, I’m going to eat dinner now.
Today was emotionally really shitty, the kind of day I want to finish by getting wasted, all teen-punk angst. Lucky there’s the internet to remind me just how grateful I should be that I’m not a tranny in Iran.
Straight.com had a piece reviewing some of the highlights of the Vancouver Queer Film & Video Festival, many that seem older than a year, or maybe it’s just been a long year in Cantonese pirate DVD land, and several that are pretty tranny-centric usually coming from somewhere in Asia where filmmakers seem to have a better grasp on reality than the English-speaking world. The film that grabbed me though, is I know that I AM directed by Peyman Khosravi, a documentary on transsexual and gay prostitutes in Iran. The trailer is on YouTube.
I Know That I Am
Despite the fact that much of the footage—shot in secret and smuggled out of Iran—was captured and presumed destroyed by local authorities, I Know That I Am exists thanks to the tenacity of director Peyman Khosravi.
Out On Screen is extremely proud to present the world premiere of this unique, powerful documentary. I Know That I Am reveals the little-told story of trans queers in Iran. Vilified by society and without support networks outside their small communities, theirs is one of survival against the odds: according to law, sexual “deviancy” is punishable by hanging. Through interviews with government officials, human rights advocates and trans people themselves, the film constructs a telling, important portrait of queer struggles amidst profound cultural restrictions.
It’s time to think about China and Guangzhou again as I’ll be in Hong Kong in two weeks and spending the next two months in Guangzhou making some particularly vile art. So, I was talking with Emile today about Chinese music because he really wants to check out the black metal scene there, and I thought about the podcast from chaile 拆了, with P.K.14, Re-TROS, 超级市场 (supermarket), and a couple of others. Then I saw today there’s a doco of P.K.14 on tour around China screening in Beijing, A Tour of the Public Kingdom.
“A Tour of the Public Kingdom ( Documentary )”
PK 14 Xun Hui
Director: David Harris
This chronicle of Chinese rock band PK14′s 2004 nationwide tour is a window into China today. Their music: a new voice in an ancient country.
‘In Oct./Nov. 2004 Chinese band PK 14 embarked on their first nation wide tour of China. A Tour of the Public Kingdom is a chronicle of that tour.
The music of PK 14′s carries us through the Chinese countryside, through band-member’s hometowns, crossing paths with friends and other bands also on tour, finally returning to Beijing.
From impromptu gig’s at internet cafe’s, to larger ritzier live venue’s, we see rock music finding it’s place in a modern china of many contrasts and voices. At times the two coming together with more than a little friction!
Shot and recorded over the month long DIY tour, we follow the band riding trains, busses, trucks, vans, cabs. Lifting and lugging come what may, all for the love of playing their music. Interspersed with spoken extracts from concerts and interview’s for local T.V. and radio stations met along the way, we learn about the four band-members, their reasons for playing and touring and the meaning behind the music. And through the eye’s of the drummer, a foreigner, are fed a little of the more quirky side of the life in China today.
This is the first film by David Harris and another 30 minutes feature film which is the second film of David Harris will follow to screen on the same night.
Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln is calling for entries of dance film documentaries for the 2006 Behind the Scenes Festival.
The film camera explores the world of dance.
It provides insights into the development of a choreography or the daily rehearsals of a dance company, offers us a many-faceted picture, composed of interviews, rehearsal shots, documents and archive materials, of the life and works of a dancer or choreographer. The camera becomes the chronicler of dance.
The works presented in the programmes of the BEHIND THE SCENES festival, though, offer more than just a look ‘behind the scenes’, more than just documentation and information. They are also examples of ambitious cinematic reflections on the most transitory of arts – dance.
For the second time this worldwide one and only festival on dance in documentaries – initiated and organized by the Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln (German Dance Archives) – will be held from October 18 – 20 2006 in Cologne.
Deadline for submissions:
May 31st, 2006Contact:
Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln
SK Stiftung Kultur
z.H. Christiane Hartter / Thomas Thorausch
Im Mediapark 7
D-50670 Köln
Phone.: +49 221 226-5763 oder 226-5772
Fax: +49 221 226-5758
E-mail: email hidden; JavaScript is requiredInformation about the programmes of the festival in 2004:
www.sk-kultur.de/tanz/scharf/seiten/darf.htm
south american penguin
christian ender & verdienstkreuz
Christian mit der Staatssekretär
Christian und Verdienstkreuz
die singende stadt
werner bab
gunther kroemer (foto christian ender)
innerwald – abstrakt
innerwald – geranien
innerwald – moos
innerwald – reisig
innerwald – schattenpferd
innerwald – schnecken
jean baudrillard – le figaro
michelangelo antonioni – chung kuo cina
开平碉楼 watchtowers in kaiping
forsythe company – three atmospheric studies
i know that i am
alt="P.K.14" title="" /> P.K.14
behind the scenes