Antigone

Berlinale Shorts Special Programme 2018

Classical source material is boiled down its pure plot elements, a drama in nine minutes: In a war against Creon, one of Antigone’s brothers fights on the king’s side, while another is aligned against him. Both die. One receives a proper burial, the other is left to rot on the field. Antigone rebels against the king and seeks to bury the latter brother – whereupon she is walled in as punishment. Her betrothed Haimon subsequently jumps to his death, whereupon his mother Eurydice hangs herself in grief. As the soothsayer foretold, Creon can wrest no good fortune from this scenario, as he too is ultimately murdered. In the end there are six individuals dead, although the war is over. Director Ula Stöckl: ‘Antigone is a figure who taught me that there is always a moment in the life of every single individual where one has to decide completely on one’s own: this is as far as I’m willing to go, no further, and now I have to say “no”, even if it costs me my life. And with our German history of course that was always a question for me, where did this figure get the inner certainty, how did she know that, where did she get the courage, would I, Ula, have had that same courage too?’
Maike Mia Höhne

by Ula Stöckl
with Heide Sparmann, Surja Balodis, Robert Roeschke, Rainer von Dietz Federal Republic of Germany 1964 German, German intertitles 9’ Black/White DCP: Günther Hörmann, Institut für Filmgestaltung Ulm e.V., Ulm

With

Heide Sparmann (Antigone)
Surja Balodis (Theiresias )
Robert Roeschke (Kreon)
Rainer von Dietz (Haimon )

Crew

Written and Directed by

Ula Stöckl

Produced by

Hochschule für Gestaltung

Ula Stöckl

Born in Ulm, Germany in 1938, she studied languages in London and Paris. Afterwards she studied at the Institut für Filmgestaltung in Ulm. She has also directed television films and theatre. Ula Stöckl is an associate professor at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Filmography (selection)

1968 Neun Leben hat die Katze; 86 min., Retrospective 1977, Classics 2015 1972 Das goldene Ding; 90 min., Forum 1972, co-directed by Alf Brustellin, Nikos Perakis, Edgar Reitz 1974 Ein ganz perfektes Ehepaar; 90 min., Berlinale 1977 1976 Erikas Leidenschaften; 64 min., Forum 1977 1984 Der Schlaf der Vernunft; 82 min., Forum 1984 · Jakobs Tauben; Forum 1984, 45 min. 1991 Das alte Lied; 82 min., Forum 1992 2015 Die Widerständigen „also machen wir das weiter ...“; 87 Min., Panorama 2015, co-directed by Katrin Seybold

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2019