Christoph Schlingensief

Schlingensief – A Voice That Shook the Silence

Using unpublished and newly digitalised archive footage and film material, Bettina Böhler has brilliantly assembled this film about the life and work of the exceptional artist Christoph Schlingensief, who died in 2010.

Partisan

Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz 1992-2017. The end of the GDR gave rise to new artistic freedoms in reunited Berlin. Shortly after the fall of the Wall, rebel director Frank Castorf was appointed artistic director of the Volksbühne. His way of working altered the public’s perception of this theater. The chronological history of the Castorf era between 1992 and 2017 is told here in excerpts from the productions and in a series of conversations conducted on the long sofa in the theater's foyer.

Chance 2000

Documentation about Christoph Schlingensief's legendary election campaign. With his theater and art actions, as a filmmaker and opera director, Christoph Schlingensief (1960–2010) shaped cultural and political discourse in Germany over two decades. The party “Chance 2000” was Schlingensief's biggest, most public project up to that point. For the 1998 general election Schlingensief organized an “election campaign circus“ in Berlin and founded the party Chance2000. This is an ecstatic piece of political education and a tale of a party’s life and survival.

Erdbeerfelder für immer

Documentary about Klaus Beyer with footage of this performance at WP8 Künstlerverein, Düsseldorf, talks with Jörg Buttgereit and Christoph Schlingensief, footage of the theatre work "Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in Mir" in Amsterdam.

Christoph Schlingensief - Die Piloten

Documentary satire about a project by Christoph Schlingensief: Ten years after his TV project "Talk 2000", Schlingensief started to work on a new talk show – at least that was what he claimed. But in reality, it was obvious that the pilot episodes he produced would never be broadcasted. Nevertheless, all celebrities from the political and cultural sphere, Schlingensief had requested, accepted his invitation, including the filmmaker Oskar Roehler, the televangelist Jürgen Fliege, the politician Claudia Roth, or the rapper Sido. It is beyond question, that the talk show panel took an unconventional course directly from the start – and was soon threatening to turn into an uproar.

Christoph Schlingensief and his Films

Interview with Christoph Schlingensief on his films. Including many film clips.

Silentium

A man who accused a catholic bishop of abusing him when he was a child dies in the Austrian city Salzburg. Everyone except his widow and the eccentrical detective Simon Brenner keeps silent and believes that the man killed himself.

Hamlet_X

A great mosaic, a labyrinth of scenes, dialogue splinters, interviews, portraits of people surrounding Hamlet and wanting to be part of his story.

Foreigners Out! Schlingensief's Container

FOREIGNERS OUT! SCHLINGENSIEFS CONTAINER is a thrilling, insightful, funny chronicle and reflection of one of he biggest public pranks and acts of art terrorism ever committed. Austria 2000: Right after the FPÖ under Jörg Haider had become part of the government, the first time an extreme right wing party became state officials after WW2, infamous German shock director Christoph Schlingensief showed a very unique form of protest. Realising public xenophobia and the new hate politics in the most drastic ways possible, he installed a public concentration camp right in the middle of Vienna's touristic heart, right beside the picturesque opera where hundreds of tourists and locals pass by daily. And it was no concentration camp you had ever feared to return from the old times, but one that cynically reflected our new multimedia culture. Satirising reality TV shows, "Big Brother" especially, a dozen asylum seekers were surveilled by a multitude of cameras, could be fed and watched by.

All Feelings Believe in a Happy Ending

A study of Alexander Kluge that also emulates his technique of seeking and linking. Kluge reads aloud, Kluge recounts, including stories from his childhood and youth, from the bombing of Halberstadt, his home town. “What you don’t understand as a child you will contemplate for the rest of your life.” Kluge does this as the author of films, books, TV programs. He has always had several professions at once. He is a legal advisor, director, author, founder of the television production company DCTP, and person in charge of its culture magazines. But if you think that these are all different jobs, you’re mistaken.

Hamlet: This Is Your Family

A provocative and ironic pamphleteering documentary about the making of Christoph Schlingensief’s Nazi-'Hamlet’ (2001). Both a media event and a form of political action Schlingensief let ex-neo-Nazis play themselves. His provocation in so-called Nazi-free Switzerland was not appreciated and when he added fuel to the flames by calling for the local political party SVP to be banned, his media offensive made front-page news far beyond Switzerland.

Failure as a Chance

Feature documentary about Christoph Schlingensief's political party/art project "Chance 2000".

Che: muerte de la utopia?

What does Che Guevara"s mythic presence represent to people at the turn of the century, and how do people define their concept of utopia?

Silvester Countdown

A young Berlin couple travel to a friend's place for the celebration of Silvester and New Year's Eve. During that period, we witness today's juvenile sub-culture, especially the ways of keeping a partnership - or breaking it up in between.

Death of a World Star

A mockumentary directed by Christoph Schlingensief.

Terror 2000

Germany, right after the re-unification. The people are out of control, blind hatred towards immigrants is common sense. In this time, a social-worker, with the mission to bring a Polish family to their destination (an immigration camp in a little provincial town called Rassau), gets kidnapped just as the family. Chief inspector Koern and his girl-friend start to investigate in this matter in Rassau, exploring a world of obsessive sex, mislead lust and an over-whelming irrational love to the German nation, infiltrating anyone's mind. Rascism doesn't start with shaved hair and boots but rather in the middle of society itself...

Street Kid

Axel is 14 years old, male prostitute, living in Düsseldorf. His mother drinks and her friends abuses him. He is sent to a bar to pick up customers. There he meets Karl-Heinz, and a loving relationship begins.

Tunguska – Die Kisten sind da

An early declaration of war on narrative cinema, using a barrage of visual and acoustic elements while at the same time juggling ironically - as he still does - with the term 'avant-garde'. A number of other preferences and obsessions were evident at an early stage, e.g. the mind-numbing habit of having his people stumbling and screaming around: life as a race track. His films likewise feature a lot of theatrical and cryptic outpourings. No wonder that they failed at the box office. No wonder either, however, that Schlingensief was attracted to theatre.

Für Elise

A short directed by Christoph Schlingensief.