Rohfilm

Raw Film

Berlinale Shorts Special Programme 2018

In Rohfilm the real image is destroyed. ‘It contains actual film collage and hand attacks upon the celluloid. Its physical presence is overwhelming.’ David Curtis ,1971
The effect of the assembled materials is enhanced by the precise, rapid rhythm of the editing and the gradually increasing volume of the soundtrack: the piece alternates between 8mm and 16mm film, as well between positive and negative images, in order to frustrate any attempt to appropriation the depicted for narrative purposes. ‘It’s not about film as a carrier of extra-cinematic statements,’ according to Birgit and Wilhelm Hein. Their material films belong among the trailblazing works of European avant-garde filmmaking of the late 1960s. They treat film as a creative medium, whose aesthetics are derived from the characteristics of the film material and the laws of human perception. They aim at the deconstruction of history as a basis for a particular understanding of society.
Maike Mia Höhne

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by Birgit Hein, Wilhelm Hein Federal Republic of Germany 1968 Silent 20’ Black/White DCP: Arsenal - Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V., Berlin

Crew

Directors	Birgit Hein, Wilhelm Hein
Sound	Christian Michelis

Birgit Hein

Born in Berlin, Germany in 1942, from 1966 to 1988 she collaborated with Wilhelm Hein on experimental films, performances and installations. She is co-founder of the avant-garde film club XScreen in Cologne and, since 1991, has been making her own films as well as writing numerous publications on experimental film. Her films are held in international collections including at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique in Brussels and the Sprengel Museum in Hanover. From 1990 to 2008 she was professor in Film and Video at Braunschweig University of Art. She is a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin where she is deputy director of the visual arts section.

Filmography

1968 Rohfilm; Co-Director: Wilhelm Hein 1982 Love Stinks; Co-Director: Wilhelm Hein 1988 Kali-Filme; Co-Director: Wilhelm Hein 1991 Die unheimlichen Frauen 1994 Baby I will Make you Sweat 1997 Eintagsfliegen 2000 La moderna poesia 2006 Kriegsbilder 2007 Shanghai Light Impressions 2013 Abstrakter Film

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2018

Wilhelm Hein

Born in Duisburg, Germany in 1940, he studied art, economics, sociology and philosophy in Munich and Cologne where he co-founded the XScreen avant-garde film club. In 1972, together with Birgit Hein, he participated in the New European Cinema section of Documenta 5; in 1977 he presented work in the film programme of Documenta 6. In 1988 he and Hein separated, divorcing in 1995. In 1992 he and Annette Frick began publishing ‘Jenseits der Trampelpfade’ (‘Off the Beaten Track’), a specialist journal for photography, film and other art forms. He and Frick also founded the CasaBaubou project space in Berlin in 2007.

Filmography (selection)

1967 S&W; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1968 Rohfilm; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1969 625; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1971 Doppelprojektion I; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1972 Doppelprojektion II–V; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1980 Superman und Wonderwoman; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1982 Love Stinks – Bilder des täglichen Wahnsinns; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1986 Verbotene Bilder; 1984–1986; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1988 Die Kali-Filme; 1987/1988; Co-Director: Birgit Hein 1994 To Those Who Found no Graves; 1989–1994 2000 You Killed the Undergroundfilm Or The Real Meaning of Kunst bleibt…bleibt…; 1999/2000 2018 Das grosse und das kleine Tohuwabohu, Opus 1-100; 1996–2018

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2018