streetscapes [dialogue]

heinz emigholz | germany, 2017 | 132'

sunday 1.3.2020 19:00

there are streets, paths, motorways, alleys, boulevards and promenades. and there are life paths, intersections and dead ends. two men sit on the shady raised platform of a brick building somewhere in montevideo. they are submerged in a conversational marathon that never ceases throughout the entire film. the younger of the two is an analyst; the older man his analysand. their nationalities are unclear; they speak a simple, internationally understandable english. they talk about a childhood among the ruins and the traumatised people of germany shortly after the second world war, about fleeing, about an obsessive interest in architecture and about manic writing. and they speak about work with the film camera, which is a technical instrument for the young analyst, but a lifeline for the old film director. the starting point of the six-day marathon is the psychological and physical block that prevents the director from starting a last great film, the streetscapes saga. the conversation, which in a slow process dissolves the director's block, takes place in changing places in extreme architectures. the camera, which portrays them both and sets them in relation to the architecture, becomes a third partner. the camera repeatedly disengages from where they are and explores the surrounding streets and neighbourhoods before returning to the two protagonists. the shell constructions of the uruguayan builder eladio dieste where they sojourn resemble gigantic braincases and thus provide a framework for the site and the theme of the project that emerges in the course of their talk: trauma and architecture. (pym films)

director heinz emigholz | script heinz emigholz, zohar rubinstein | cinematography & editing heinz emigholz, till beckmann | sound christian obermaier, jochen jezussek | screening format dcp | producers frieder schlaich, irene von alberti | distribution / copy source filmgalerie 451