What Remains after You're Gone?
What 's left of someone, after he or she is dead? Sure, we live on in the memory of our loved ones. Also in foto- and videomaterial or other documents about certain events in our lives. And then there are cemetaries and museums, that are socially established ways to commemorate the dead. But don't people only stay on in the memory of others as long as there is another human to tell their tale? 6 films on what remains after we're gone.
Dad's Stick
DAD'S STICK features three well-used objects that were shown to the filmmaker by his father shortly before he died. Two of these were so steeped in history that their original forms and functions were almost completely obscured. Focussing on these ambiguous artifacts and events relating to their history, DAD'S STICK creates a dialogue between abstraction and literal meaning. Looking back over half a century, the work explores the contradictions of memory to create an oblique portrait of a dead father and his relationship with his son.
- Großbritannien
- 00:04:56
- Director: John Smith
- Production: N/A
- Photography: Patrick Duval
- Editing: John Smith
- Music: N/A
- Sound: John Smith
- Languages: en
- Subtitles: en
- Year: 2012
Semra Ertan
Semra Ertan, born 1956 in Turkey, moved to the German Federal Republic in 1972. Semra Ertan worked as a construction draughtswoman and as an interpreter. Soon, she started to write and composed over 350 poems. 1982 she burned herself in Hamburg, to protest against xenophobia in the German Federal Republic. She was the aunt of the director of this film.
- Österreich
- 00:08:00
- Director: Cana Bilir-Meier
- Production: Cana Bilir-Meier
- Photography: Cana Bilir-Meier
- Editing: Cana Bilir-Meier
- Music: Enjott Schneider
- Sound: Cana Bilir-Meier, Philip Leitner
- Languages: de
- Year: 2013
- World Premiere
Buffalo Death Mask
A conversation with Canadian painter Stephen Andrews returns us to a pre-cocktail moment, when being HIV+ afforded us the consolation of certainty. “It began with a single roll of 16mm film shot in Mike Cartmell’s sub-optimal Buffalo refuge. I think Phil and I had gone down with intentions to cheer him up, though perhaps we were seeking some lost comradery ourselves. And those were still the days when you didn’t leave home without a camera. There was little light when we arrived, in every sense of the word, but Phil thought if we ran the footage once, twice, three times through the camera, something of the evening might leave an impression. We were shooting with a wind-up Bolex of course, and there would have been drinking involved, something to ease the difficulty of company, no matter how apparently welcome, along with some of Mike’s miraculous cooking that I wouldn’t learn to taste until years later. We handed the camera back and forth, the subject was (of course) ourselves. When the footage returned it was shelved for more than a decade, and when I recovered it, it meant nothing at all until I could see the moments drift past in ultra slow motion, which revealed what had been there all along. We had gathered to practice the passage between life and death that night, letting the light come up out of our bodies so that we could stage a final, illuminated good-bye.“ (Mike Holboom)
- Kanada
- 00:23:00
- Director: Mike Hoolboom
- Production: Mike Hoolboom
- Photography: Steve Sanguedolce, John Price, Mike Hoolboom
- Editing: Mike Hoolboom
- Music: Machinefabriek, Jasper Tx
- Sound: Mike Hoolboom
- Languages: en
- Subtitles: en
- Year: 2013
- Website
48 HEADS FROM THE MERKUROV MUSEUM (after Kurt Kren)
The Merkurov museum in Gyumri in Armenia holds a unique collection of death masks made by the Soviet sculptor Sergey Merkurov (1881–1952), who was a student of Auguste Rodin. This archive gives an overview of the representatives of culture and politics in the Soviet regime at that time. The film shows 48 heads from the collection, that by using specific editing techniques, appear to morph into one face.
- Österreich
- 00:04:19
- Director: Anna Artaker
- Production: xxxx
- Photography: xxxx
- Editing: xxxx
- Music: xxxx
- Sound: xxxx
- Year: 2011
- German Premiere
Grave Goods
What becomes of the personal effects we leave behind after our death? GRAVE GOODS, the director’s homage to her grandmother and a sensitive reflection on mourning and remembrance, opens with this question. Through a rigorous ‘mise en scène’, the filmmaker shows objects and images belonging to the departed, while giving free rein to her own recollections. An intimate cinematographic museum of the fleeting nature of existence.
- Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika
- 00:11:37
- Director: Leslie Tai
- Production: Leslie Tai
- Photography: Seamus Harte
Leslie Tai - Editing: Leslie Tai
- Music: Hunter McCurry
Chris Carlson
Dub Gabriel - Sound: Leslie Tai
Lizzie Rose - Languages: en,zh
- Subtitles: en
- Year: 2012
- Website
- German Premiere
Finovo
A café is a place for chatting. A cemetery is a place for introspection. The “cemetery-café“ finovo is a place where both is possible. Bernd, Dirk and Günther visit the graves of their life partners regularly – and then stop by the café to share their memories and experiences.
- Deutschland
- 00:13:00
- Director: Claudio Winter
- Production: Marie-Luise Scharf
- Photography: Martin Gasch
- Editing: Trang Nguyen
- Music: Dominik Campus
- Sound: Ronja Solger, Vensan Mazmanyan
- Languages: de
- Subtitles: en
- Year: 2012